If You Loved Me
by Reilly Black
Summary: What if Jace and Clary had met on another day, under different circumstances, in Pandemonium? Jace was a womanizer before his epic love came along, and Clary might have been just another notch on his bed post. Or would she?
1. Virgin

"I wonder if they'd let us play here?" Simon swirled the bright red cherry around his virgin drink and sipped loudly through the straw. "Pretty good, even if it was 7 dollars." His eyebrows lifted and he smacked his lips together with relish.

"Let who play here?"

"My band."

"Oh yeah… what's your name again?"

"Um.. Lawn Chair Crisis. I think." He sipped loudly again, growing more interested in the strange drink.

Clary was really only half listening. Her eyes swept the club. It was dark, lit only by flashing strobe lights, glowing piercings and black light reflections. Clary was jealous of the undulating bodies of the crowd, wishing she had the guts to dive in and find a random dance partner herself. She wouldn't, though, not in a million years. She didn't have the confidence for that.

"That's probably something you should know, Simon." She sighed, returning her yearning gaze to the table at the reminder that she would always be sitting on the sidelines, cracking jokes with Simon and wishing she had stronger guts. "Besides, they're playing techno music out of loudspeakers. Why do you think they'd hire a live band to play?"

"Look, there's a stage over there." Simon gestured to a corner of the club and Clary realized why she hadn't noticed it before: the dancers had swelled onto it and overtaken it. Her eyes caught on the gleaming gold hair of a dancer. His partner was a slender brunette with a short frilly dress, and she was absolutely mesmerized with him, grinding and stroking his body without restraint. The way he moved, Clary understood her very obvious attraction. He was graceful and reserved, while still teasing and flirty. They shifted, turning on the stage, his hands on her hips, and she leaned in very close to his ear to say something over the loud music. He smiled, and Clary felt a shiver of attraction to his roguish smile. His ears were pierced, but otherwise he didn't really look like he belonged in the new age-gothic club. He wore a black leather jacket over a white shirt, a simple outfit compared to the highly decorative getup of his dance partner. Clary couldn't keep her eyes off of the way they moved together. She wished, for the hundredth time that night, that she could dance like that, be like that girl.

"What are you staring at so hard?" Simon had noticed she wasn't paying attention to him and squinted towards the stage, following her eyes. Clary immediately tore her gaze away, embarrassed by Simon's scrutiny.

"Some of the outfits here are really cool." Clary brushed off his question, but her eyes drifted back to the couple as Simon looked away, back to the golden haired boy. She couldn't help it, something about him just-

His eyes met hers as he shifted his dance partner once more, tossing her fluidly from one hand to the other. Surprised, her mouth fell open a little, and somehow she didn't feel like he could be holding her eyes, looking at her like she was; she must be daydreaming. It wasn't until he smirked at her that she dropped her gaze, heat rushing into her face.

_Oh god, he knew I was checking him out. Why didn't I look away sooner?_

Stinging with embarrassment, Clary stole Simon's drink from him and sipped deeply from the straw, in need of a physical activity to distract her.

"What do you think? Even the drinks here are weird." Simon asked mildly.

"Tangy." Clary coughed. It tasted tropical, but she couldn't put her finger on the exact fruit. Avoiding the stage, Clary looked around wistfully one last time, taking in the exotic outfits and styles, somehow bright and colorful and dark and ominous all at once, before grabbing her purse. "Can we go? The music's too loud to hear you."

"Really? Already? Don't you want to dance?" Simon asked, surprised. He sounded almost hopeful.

"Naw." Dancing with Simon was kind of awkward and uncomfortable, like dancing with a brother. "I think I want to go home, if that's ok."

A little deflated, Simon nodded.

"Alright. Just let me finish this thing first. It was expensive, I might as well." Clary could tell he really liked it by the way he devoured the straw. She was too embarrassed to sit there, not after the way that guy smirked at her. She needed to move.

"I'm going to run to the bathroom, then." She jumped from the high stool, a painful reminder of her short stature, and threaded her way through the crowd. A glowing, neon sign in the shape of a punk rocker chick directed her to the ladies room. When Clary pushed the paint splattered door open, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief at escaping the claustrophobia of the crowd. Clean, cool air from outside filtered through a vent directly, washing over her as she stepped to the sink. She fussed with her hair a little, killing time. Her outfit couldn't have been plainer- just a jacket over a solid colored tank top, and black jeans. Her hair fell in waves over her shoulders and back, loose and simple. She couldn't stand the upkeep of hairstyles, so most of the time she just brushed it and let it do what it wanted. She remembered the elaborate hairstyle of the flashy, beautiful girl the boy had been dancing with. She turned from the mirror and ducked out of the bathroom.

She checked her phone as she walked down the dark hallway from the bathroom, back to the crowd of dancers; 6 new texts, all from her mom. _Great._

She swerved to avoid another person she noticed out of the corner of her eye, too distracted with opening her mother's texts to look up fully. _ It's not past curfew, why does she have to freak out?_ She wondered, irritated. She bumped into a chest, and looked up in surprise, about to apologize. The person she'd idly been trying to avoid was the boy who'd caught her staring.

He was looking down at her, square in front of her, with mild amusement. His tawny eyes sparkled in the glow of the black light of the hall. _That can't be his natural color_ was the last thought to drift through her mind before it went blank and her former embarrassment returned, his smirk from earlier flashing through her head.

"Sorry." She mumbled, looking anywhere but at his smug expression. She ducked to the side again, but he moved to block her. She froze in confusion.

"I bumped into you, actually. My bad." He smirked again. He was even more attractive up close. Clary could barely look at him.

"Oh?" Her voice was almost a squeak. "Don't worry about it." She flashed him a small smile before trying to edge around him again. He blocked her once more.

"Want to dance?" He asked.

Clary was literally frozen in surprise. She realized she was gaping at him again and quickly closed her mouth.

"Um-" She mumbled. _Not really, I've only ever danced with Simon, and not well at that. _

He grew bored with waiting and boldly took her hand in his, drawing her the rest of the way down the corridor, slipping easily into the crowd. Clary was faint with surprise, still trying to process the situation, when he found a slight opening in the crowd and pulled her into the pocket, right up against his chest. The music was pulsing, but it was slower, thank god- she didn't know what she would have done if it was a fast song. He started to move, the way he'd moved with that other girl, graceful and flirtatious. His hand drifted from her shoulder to her waist, gently guiding her against him, prompting her to move to keep up with him. She'd never danced like this before, and at first she was timid, afraid. He leaned in close to her ear so she could hear him over the music,

"Relax. I'm not going to eat you." _Well, he didn't have to point out how tense I am. _Anger replaced nerves and she wrapped her arms boldly around his shoulders, pulling him closer, moving her hips to the beat with energy. He was almost surprised by the sudden move, but then his smirk returned and he leaned into her again. She was shocked when his hands drifted lower, resting on her hips briefly before curling around to caress her lower back. No one had ever touched her there before, not like that. Electricity sparked up her spine from the feel of him.

He'd bent his head close to her, and she was again mesmerized by the golden color of his eyes. The beat in the air, pulsing through the ground, the sweaty bodies around them, Clary was losing her sense of self and falling into it, and, in the center of it all, his gold eyes she couldn't break away from.

His hands were gentle on her back, urging her ever closer, and suddenly their hips were touching, her chest inches from his. The feel of his hips against hers was definitely a new experience; she was nearly dizzy with nerves. Every time he moved against her, her heart jumped, her palms grew sweatier, and she lost track of what was in front of her, too intent on his body's movements. She knew what they must look like, she'd seen people dance like this before and it made her blush to even watch, and suddenly she was very aware of how many people might be watching them at that moment.

Then, without warning, at a time when she couldn't register what was in front of her she was concentrating so hard on what his hips and hands were doing, he bent to kiss her. His lips were sweet like honey, and the musky smell of him hit her like a wave.

Clary, too lost in it all, didn't realize she was kissing him back. She'd kissed before, not a lot, not nearly enough to be called 'a lot', but enough that she knew how. Her brain was lagging behind her body, it couldn't tell her whether she should or not, so her body took charge. Her brain seemed to have completely shut off, all this new information and experience overloading it to the point of a major crash.

He pulled her even closer, and her chest was pressed against his now, her hips melding with his, his thighs parting her legs, and they were dancing the way she'd never imagined she would dance with anyone.

And she didn't mind it, not one bit.

His tongue pressed gently against her lips, entering her mouth. She thought she might faint from the rush of adrenaline in her body, especially when his hands drifted up into her hair, holding her lips close to his.

"You should put your purse away." He whispered against her mouth, in between kisses, "It's annoying."

"Oh." Was all she could manage. It had been bumping against them and slipping off her shoulder from time to time. She vaguely wondered whether she should leave it with Simon.

_Simon. _

Then reality came crashing back, and she realized she was dancing with and kissing a person she'd never met before in plain view of her best friend, to whom she would have a hard time explaining the disconnect between her brain and her body.

"Um." Clary bit her lip and shook her head a bit to clear some of the fuzzy, non-thinking from it. "I should get back." He was too close. His smell was overwhelming her, making her dizzy. She even didn't know smells could do that.

"Why? Is someone waiting for you?" Her dance partner asked, his gold eyes dazzling her, "Is it that guy you came with? Didn't look like you were very interested in him."

"Yes." She said simply, "I mean, we're not like that. He's my friend. I should go." She was having a hard time removing herself from the warm, hard, feeling of this stranger against her body. She didn't want these feelings to stop.

"If he's just your friend," The stranger said, "why don't you tell him you're going to spend the night with me."

"What?" Clary blinked, stunned.

"You don't want to?" He grinned, confident of her response.

"Um." There was a strange buzzing sound in her ears. Dancing with him felt so amazing, and now he wanted to spend the night with her? Had she entered into a magical fairyland of unicorns and dragons?

"I don't even know your name." She realized.

"Jace." He smirked. She had a feeling he knew what she was thinking.

"Well, you don't know my name." She frowned.

"What's your name?" He asked with a laugh.

"Clary."

"Now I know your name. So? What will it be?" He asked.

"You don't mess around with small talk, do you?" She breathed, irked.

"Not when I know what I want." He winked. Clary looked away abruptly. She wasn't used to being told she was wanted.

"Is that a no?" He asked. They were still moving against each other, their bodies pressed tightly together, but now he started to pull back.

"Have you just been asking girls that all night?" She wondered aloud, bitter at the sudden distance between them.

"You're the first, actually. You might not believe me, but it's true." Jace shrugged. "I've had a couple offers, but nothing too tempting to resist." The way he said it made her think he wasn't just bragging to impress her- he was sincerely _nonchalant_ about the whole idea.

_I wouldn't believe him, but he's attractive, so I'm sure it's true. _ Clary swallowed, remembering how that girl was dancing with him. She still couldn't bring herself to say no, to tell him to go to hell because she wasn't that kind of girl. She didn't want these amazing feelings to stop.

It wasn't like she had this romantic notion of losing her virginity, and to whom she would lose it. She wasn't waiting for her soul mate, exactly, she wasn't really waiting for anyone. She'd just never wanted to, not like she did now. He'd somehow coaxed her body into thrumming with want.

"Ok." She agreed, her hands shaking at the idea. Jace's eyebrows jumped up before he pulled her close again, leaning down to kiss her deeply. _French kissing, dirty dancing, and sex all for the first time in one night? Am I still Clary Fray?_

"Um, I'll be right back. I've got to go tell him."

"I'll come with you."

"No, that's ok!" If she had to explain to Simon why she was leaving, she might just die of embarrassment. It was so out of character for her, she was sure Simon wouldn't understand.

His eyebrows leapt up again, this time for a different reason.

"Are you worried I won't play nice?" He drawled, sarcastic.

"He's kind of protective of me; he'll probably try to stop me from going with you."

"Oh." Jace grinned, continuing to follow her.

"Hey, can you go wait somewhere else?" She said, more direct.

"So he will think someone's abducted you? Naw, I'll introduce myself, then he won't worry."

_I'll introduce myself, then he won't worry. _ _Let me tell you how flawed that plan is._

"Will you just chill over there so I can talk to my friend?" She snapped, pointing at a corner without people and out of Simon's sight.

"Why are you so touchy about him? You _aren't_ dating, right?" Jace frowned.

"We aren't. Don't worry, he won't be coming after you with a weapon in your sleep." Clary said. Something glittered in his eyes, almost as though the thought of Simon attacking him was very amusing.

"Oh, I won't worry." Clary glanced back at him, his tone giving her pause. He had stopped following her and instead was watching her with that same arrogant smile. He melted back into the crowd, and Clary pushed down the lump in her throat as he disappeared.

_Am I really going to do this? Am I going to go with him?_

She thought back to the electricity sparking through her body as he touched her, the dizzying desire and adrenaline that flooded her, making her hands shake with the pure alertness that came with being so close to him. _Yes. Tonight, I take a chance. _

"Hey Simon."

"Clary! I'm done with my drink. You want to head out?" Simon stood from the stool, picking up his school bag from the ground.

"I ran into another friend here, so I think I'm going to stick around for a while."

"Really? Who?"

"You don't know him."

"_Him_?" Simon's eyes narrowed. "Why don't I know him? I know everyone you know. I know your childhood babysitter, for christ's sake."

"I met him in my art classes at Tisch, so… yeah, I think I'm going to hang around for a while. But you should go home, it's getting late and your mom will worry." Clary smiled brightly.

"What do you mean _my mom_ will worry? Your mom is the strictest parent I know when it comes to staying out late!" Simon's frown deepened. "Maybe you shouldn't trust this guy if you just met him."

Clary had to resist groaning out loud. Why were these two boys making it so difficult for her? _He has a good point- maybe I shouldn't trust Jace, I just met him. _

There was something about him though, something Clary couldn't put her finger on, that she knew she could trust. It was that same something that attracted her eyes to him in the first place, that kept her eyes glued to him even when he noticed her staring at him. He seemed indescribably familiar.

"I can trust him." She found herself saying, and she felt it in her heart. "He's a good guy."

Simon still wasn't convinced.

"Introduce me to him. He better walk you home, New York is dangerous at night." Clary rolled her eyes at him, but at the same time she wouldn't want to walk home alone at night either.

"Alright, but don't ask him a bunch of weird questions."

"Weird questions? I'm offended, Clarissa Fray."

"Yeah, like what's your license plate and social security." Clary said pointedly.

"Well those aren't 'weird questions', those are just common practice if you leave your female friend alone with a strange guy."

"I told you he's not strange, I know him." Clary felt a twinge of guilt insisting on her lie. She led him to the corner she'd pointed Jace to, and sure enough he was leaning coolly against the wall, watching them approach with those lion's eyes of his.

"Hey." Simon nodded. Jace didn't nod back. "I'm Simon, Clary's friend."

"Jace." He said, his eyes on Clary.

"So you met Clary in art class?" Simon asked. Clary narrowed her eyes at him, unsure where he was going with this. "Was it the one where they draw pots or naked people?"

Jace's lips twitched in amusement.

"Naked people."

"Oh? How was that?" Simon asked, actually interested. He was continually bothering her about her figure drawing class, convinced that it must be far more awkward than she insisted it was.

"A little cold at times, but mostly fine." Simon's eyes flicked over Jace, taking in how attractive he was and seeming to accept the information at once. Simon looked at Clary accusingly.

"You've seen him naked? Aren't there, like, rules about fraternizing with the models?"

"He's kidding. He wasn't modeling." Clary said quickly. "He was drawing with the rest of us. We set our easels up next to each other and started talking."

Simon still looked a bit green as his eyes swept over Jace again.

"Alright. Well." Simon seemed to recover his train of thought, "I just wanted to check that you can walk Clary home, it's getting dark out."

"Sure, I can do that." Jace nodded. Simon looked between them again, still unsure and almost irritated, but then Clary nudged him towards the door with a look.

"I'll be fine. Go, I'll head home soon." She smiled affectionately at him and Simon took a few steps towards the door, casting a look at Jace one last time before turning fully and walking towards the exit.

When he left, Jace wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. Clary gasped a little at the sudden show of affection, his lips right at eye-level and only inches from her as he said,

"So… how about we get out of here?"

Now that she was close to him again, that same electricity was running through her, warming her body and chasing coherent thoughts from her head. She put her hands on his chest, almost experimentally, surprised at the firmness beneath her fingertips. He glanced down at her fingers, lightly tracing his chest, and seemed pleased by it.

"Where to? My house is out."

Jace started walking, taking her hand in his at once and leading her through the throng of colorful goths.

Clary felt a tingle of excitement when he tucked their hands into his pocket as they left the club and cool near-night air hit them. _Oh, I guess he's going to hold my hand even when we aren't trying to stick together in a crowd of people. _The sun was setting over the tall buildings, streaking the sky with reds and purples.

"Well, I can't take you back to where I live. Let's find a hotel."

"Why's that?"

Jace smiled to himself as though at some private joke.

"_Girls_ aren't allowed."

"Oh really?"

"You pick. I'll pay." Jace offered.

"I don't know many hotels." Clary responded, nervous. She wanted to be alone with him, but if they were going to a hotel, she didn't want to pick something outlandishly expensive, or incredibly cheap.

"Alright, I'll pick." He continued walking.

They arrived at an old fashioned looking building a subway ride later. It was ancient but clean, and Clary felt when she entered the revolving doors that it had probably been a hotel for at least eighty years by the look of it. The person behind the counter looked suspiciously like they had just left the same club they had- her hair was shot through with purple and pink highlights, and she had added trinkets and bobbles to create a steam-punk version of what Clary figured must be the uniform. Clary could have sworn she saw the shimmer of dragonfly wings at her back, but then she blinked at they were gone.

The girl looked Clary over with interest and asked abruptly,

"A mundane, Jace?"

"Just shut up and give me a room key." Jace rolled his eyes. The girl huffed and turned to look through the large wall of cubbies at the back of the room. Clary wondered if 'mundane' was some kind of racist comment she'd never heard before and whether she should be offended by it. Jace didn't seem offended for her, so Clary figured she'd let it go. She was struck by the old-fashioned system of maintaining the rooms. _Aren't these things usually computerized…? _

"Room 105 is free."

Jace caught the key she tossed at him and swiftly continued on his way. They walked down a deep velvet blue and red hallway, the walls a composition of wood and embroidered silk screens, and Clary wondered how many times he had to have brought girls here that the concierge knew him by name. Suddenly she didn't feel special at all; she felt cheap.

_Why am I doing this? I should leave. _

Jace fit the old, elegant key into the door lock and twisted, pulling her into the room by the hand. Clary was stunned at how beautiful the room was, like something out of a fairytale. The four post bed covered in a lacey bedspread, the furniture looked like it had been transported directly out of the Victorian age, and most of it was a rich, dark color that complimented the deep blues and reds of the floor and walls. Clary wished she had her sketchbook on hand.

"Wow, this is really pretty." She whispered to herself. Jace shrugged off his jacket and hung it up in the small closet by the bathroom.

"Glad you like it." He smiled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door to the bathroom. Without his jacket, Clary could see the defined muscles of his arms and the way his thin white t-shirt fell around his body. He was really fit.

Clary's heart pounded in her chest as the silence stretched on, incredibly aware of the small distance between them. She examined a small lampstand just to have an excuse to move and look away, completely unsure what to do in this sort of situation.

"All the furniture in here is so nice."

"I never really noticed. I guess to an artist." Jace said.

A light touch on her arm sent a shock through her skin and Clary turned to see that Jace was right behind her, his hand trailing down her arm.

"You've never done this before, have you?" He asked quietly.

"Not really, no." Clary swallowed hard, looking away nervously as his hand shifted seamlessly from her wrist to her waist.

"Why now?"

"I don't know." Clary mumbled, too distracted by his hand slipping under her shirt, his fingers grazing her stomach.

"Well, I'm very flattered that you picked me to break your one-night-stand cherry." His breath was on her neck now, and she drew a sharp breath as he kissed the sensitive skin there. He ran his hand up her shirt, and Clary gasped as he came to her breast. She'd never been touched there; it was strange and pleasant and terrifying all at once. His hand dipped inside her bra, massaging her and pinching her nipple lightly.

A moan lept from Clary's throat and she almost covered her mouth in surprise. She didn't know she could make that sound.

Jace smiled against her skin at the sound and gently turned her around. He lifted her shirt over her head with both hands, his eyes falling on her exposed chest and lighting up at what he saw.

"You're beautiful…" He murmured against her lips, stroking her sides before peeling down the pads of her bra. Clary's head was pounding and the strange buzzing sound was back. She was just trying to keep standing through all these new sensations.

"Thank you." She muttered awkwardly, unsure what else to say or even if she should say anything at all. Jace's eyes were intense as he leaned back to look at her. Clary sighed at the rush of adrenaline that surged through her as he pressed his chest against her bare chest, his shirt soft against her skin. She realized she should probably undress him too if she wanted to get anywhere.

She slipped her hands hesitantly under his shirt, and his eyes flared with desire as she brushed the skin just above his pants. She seized the light material in her hands and he raised his arms so she could pull it off his head, revealing an incredibly toned chest. She gulped at the sight of it and her hands began to shake.

Jace kissed her slowly, trailing kisses from her mouth to her neck as he backed her towards the bed. Clary jumped a little as they hit the edge of the bed. Jace lowered her down, and as she laid back she had no choice but to part her legs for him, an intimate position that caused her stomach to roll over in her body. He started to undo her jean button, and her heart really kicked up it's pace then. The buzzing in her ears intensified as he pulled her jeans down, revealing her underwear and upper thighs, bare to his gaze. He tugged them down off her legs before falling over her and back to her lips, his hands growing rougher and more urgent in their treatment of her. She cried out against his lips as he squeezed her breast particularly hard, and he immediately drew back.

"You all right?"

"You just surprised me." Clary panted. His whole attitude surprised her, the urgency with which he kissed her and touched her. She couldn't believe someone would want her with such passion.

He kissed her again, groaning into her mouth as their bare chests rubbed together, and Clary couldn't think, could barely breathe she was so lost in the feeling.

Clary realized eventually she should finish undressing him, as he was letting her go at her own pace with his clothes rather than undressing himself. She guessed he could tell how nervous she was. Her hands were shaking so badly she wasn't sure she could do it. Jace noticed her trembling, and he took her hand in his, directing her between their bodies to the opening of his jeans.

"You ok?" He asked again, his breath harsh and ragged, his eyes a little out of focus.

"I-" Clary couldn't form words. She focused on undoing his jeans, her fingers trembling so badly she could barely pull the zipper down. She started to slide his pants down his hips and Jace moaned lightly against her neck, helping her once she had passed the point that she could reach.

Then they were nearly naked and pressed against each other. Time lost meaning to Clary, all she knew were his hot kisses on her body and the fact that she felt like she was floating. _When did I lose my underwear?_ She wondered absently as she saw her underwear next to her on the bed. Jace urged her farther up, away from the edge, and positioned himself above her, pressing her hands to the bed with his. She interlaced her fingers with his and was struck by how reverently he touched her, as though she were something fragile he was trying not to break.

She could feel him at the entrance to her, and suddenly she realized that this was _it. _This was the moment she had wondered about. _Is it going to hurt? What will it feel like? What if I can't do it? What if he doesn't like it?_

_ What am I doing here, why did I agree to this? _

Jace held her eyes as he slowly pushed into her, and to Clary it was the most erotic thing in the world, the way he was looking at her with pure lust. Then a shock of pain shot through her, Clary cried out, and Jace's eyes widened with surprise. He stilled immediately, frozen as he watched her recover from the stinging aftermath. The pain died away quickly when he stopped.

"Oh my god." He whispered. He sat up, anger and fear flashing through his expression. He moved back, withdrawing from her, and stared at her for several moments in stunned silence. Clary was suddenly embarrassed to be lying in such an exposed position, so she sat up too, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"You didn't tell me I was popping your _actual_ cherry." Jace's eyes narrowed, his voice a strange calm as he referred back to his earlier comment. She had no idea what he was feeling, his face was a mask to her.

"You didn't ask." Clary replied, nervous.

Jace's mouth fell slightly open at that and an eyebrow shot up. He closed his mouth with a snap and his eyes narrowed into an openly angry expression. He tugged the condom off- _when did he put that on? Or did I do it?- _ found his underwear next to them- _did I take those off?_- and started to pull them on. He balled up the condom and threw it in the waist basket on the side of the bed.

"Well, gee, I'll put that on my list of things I ask a girl before I bed her from now on."

Clary clutched the sheets around her, incredibly confused by his sudden change in attitude. She wanted his skin back on hers, his kisses on her neck, his touch on her thigh, his chuckle in her ear- but his expression was closed off now, cold and irritated.

"Why are you so angry?" She wondered aloud, trying to keep the hurt from her voice, pulling the sheet tighter around her.

"You didn't tell me you were a virgin." Jace repeated as he slid his jeans back on.

"Sorry I'm not usually so slutty and I made an exception for you." Clary's voice was louder and more sarcastic than she wanted it to be.

Jace paused, looking back at her.

"What, you really want to lose your virginity this way?" He asked, his expression hostile. _Now you're judging me? Now? After all that I've let you do tonight, having only just met you, you judge me for being a virgin? Isn't it supposed to be the opposite reaction?_

"It's none of your business how I choose to lose my virginity!" Clary's temper flared and she found herself actually yelling at him.

"It is if I'm the one doing it!" He growled, tugging his shirt back on. "Get dressed, I'm taking you home." He turned his head as though he couldn't bear to look at her any longer, arms crossed in front of his chest. Clary was beyond furious. _He thinks he can just order me around after treating me like this?_ She threw a pillow. He recoiled in surprise as it hit him.

"Jesus, I can't believe you're judging me!" Clary cried, bitterness dripping off her voice.

"I'm not judging you, I just don't want to be a part of it!"

"Why does it make such a big difference?" She yelled again. No matter the reason, she felt rejected, unwanted. If she didn't yell, she thought she might cry out of humiliation, and crying in front of him was absolutely not an option.

"Because, I'm not going to be a huge mistake to you!" He yelled back, losing his control. "You don't know it yet, but you will when we're done and you hate yourself and you hate me for letting it happen!"

Clary was quiet then, stunned at the passion in his words. But she was still angry.

She threw another pillow at him. Jace ducked this one easily, grabbed his jacket out of the closet, and called,

"I'll be outside. Come out when you're done." before he opened the door and retreated through it. Clary stared at the closed door, trying to process everything that had just happened.

* * *

_I don't know what's up with me lately, guys, all I've been able to write is porn. I try to write something with meaningful plot and romance….. and it ends up porn XD. Whatever, I'm just going to go with it for now. I have a feeling this is going to turn into a more meaningful story, the seeds of ideas are already sprouting in my mind. I think my porn regression is because Cassandra Clare has been teasing us for, what, five books now? How many 'almost' moments have Clace had? I guess I needed to play it out in my brain to get some closure on their romance. _

_Please review! _


	2. Shadowhunters

Jace watched as the redhead stormed out of the room, letting the door fall with a crash after her and not even bothering to look around for him. After all the pillow throwing, he'd suspected as much.

"Clary, wait."

Clary barely glanced over her shoulder as he said her name. She was walking quickly so Jace had to jog to catch up with her at first. Luckily, her legs were so short he could walk normally to keep up with her after that.

"Will you calm down for a second?" He hissed.

"Just leave me alone!" Clary hissed back, not looking at him. Bright red spots were high up on her cheeks and her eyes looked a little red. _Great, I made her cry. _

"Don't cry." He said, trying to sound gentle and failing miserably.

"I'm not crying!" She spun on him, fury lighting her eyes. Jace almost took a step back from the intensity of her rage, but he held his ground.

"You're right, of course, it must just be your sudden allergy to air that flared up at the exact same time I pissed you off." Jace couldn't do this. He couldn't comfort this girl. He wasn't a 'comforting' guy. He could kill a demon in ten swipes or less, but he couldn't comfort a crying a girl.

"Exactly: you pissed me off. You didn't upset me. So why would I be crying?" Clary growled, turning on her heel and continuing her furious pace. As she stalked through the lobby Jace turned and tossed the keys to their room back to the Pixie at the front desk. She was staring open-mouthed at Clary, but she caught it with a smug laugh, no doubt delighted at the juicy gossip she had the fortune to witness.

_Well, this is going to be difficult to live down if Isabelle and Alec get wind of this. _

"Clary, I promised your friend I would walk you home. It's dark out. I'm not going to let you get mugged just because I pissed you off."

"How gentlemanly of you." Clary spat, her voice dripping with sarcasm, hitting the revolving doors with enough force to knock them down.

_All right. That's enough. _As they arrived on the other side, Jace grabbed her arm and spun her around. Clary, caught off guard, nearly fell over in surprise. He kept his hand on her to steady her, but she knocked it away as soon as she was straight.

"Don't touch me!" She yelled. A few people on the street looked over, vaguely worried. It was night out, and the air was colder than when they'd arrived.

"Why are you being such a brat about this?" Jace lowered his voice to a dangerous growl.

"You're a judgmental prick who decided I wasn't good enough to sleep with at the last second, so how should I act towards you?" Clary, thank god, lowered her voice to a reasonable level to avoid passersby's stares. To compensate, she filled her tone with extra venom.

"By virtue of having no experience, you don't know what it feels like when your first time is horrible. I'm trying to do you a favor." Jace gritted his teeth, willing himself to tone down his natural inclination towards sarcasm and just be direct.

Clary seemed to deflate a little at that. She struggled with her words for a moment.

"Maybe I don't have any experience, but what makes you so sure it would have been something I would regret? Are you that bad?" She raised her eyebrows with a proud little smile. The desperate blow didn't touch him, however, and he simply replied in a calm, if irritated, voice,

"I could see how much pain you were in. I was barely inside you. It doesn't get better from there, believe me."

Clary blushed visibly at that and she seemed to have nothing immediate to say, so he continued,

"I've heard it depends on the girl. For some girls it doesn't hurt much, and for others it's agony. From your reaction, you're the latter. For some lucky girls, it breaks clean at the beginning and the rest of the sex is good, but I've never seen it and I've never heard of a girl who went through it with a stranger and had it work out for the best. Beyond the physical, sex, especially the first time, is special, I don't care who you are."

"Oh? What, you've deflowered so many girls you're such an expert now?" Clary huffed, crossing her arms protectively in front of her.

"No, but if I were you and I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I would be grateful to the kind fellow who warned me and tried to help me avoid it." Jace couldn't help the dry quality of his voice. He quirked an eyebrow and stared her down.

"Well maybe if you hadn't just snapped at me to get dressed and explained that in the first place I would have!" Clary scowled, her voice rising again. In the edges of her eyes he could see tears barely budding. _So that's why she's so pissed. _

Jace was afraid, deathly afraid, of hurting her, but shadowhunters are trained from a young age to hide fear at all costs. Fear shows weakness and an enemy can and will take advantage of any weakness it's given. He couldn't tell her that, though.

"I didn't mean to get angry, I was just startled." Jace explained quickly. "You shouldn't have surprised me like that."

"Well, excuse me! How could I have never mentioned something so private in all of our long, meaningful conversations!" She hissed, and started to walk again, her pace only a shade slower than her previous fury walk.

Jace wanted to punch something. He was tempted to let her run off and get into whatever trouble she might find. She was _impossible._

He jogged to catch up to her.

She glanced at him, but didn't say anything, just continued at her brisk pace, her arms crossed over her chest against the cold.

* * *

Clary wanted to get home, take a shower, crawl into her bed and forget her idiocy today. Forget she ever met Jace, forget her temporary, teenage hormone-fueled decision to 'take a chance'.

The worst part was he made sense. He sounded reasonable. He sounded like the guy she told Simon she inexplicably felt she could trust.

But she was still humiliated, and nothing he could say, no matter how reasonable, would change that.

They sat in silence on the train, and Clary wished fervently that they would get to the next stop already. She couldn't bear Jace's presence next to her.

A man in a heavy overcoat and a low riding hat who looked like he had an incredible case of widow's hump limped past them. Clary had never seen a back so misshapen. Jace watched him go, his tawny eyes bright with interest. Forgetting the uncomfortable silence between them, she leaned over and whispered,

"What do you think was wrong with him?"

Jace looked at her like she'd slapped him.

"What did you just say?"

"You're right. I'm being rude." _I should just shut up. I live in New York. It's not like I haven't learned to ignore the strange things. _

"You saw him?" Jace said, and the astonishment on his face was the most emotion she'd seen all night. Clary nodded, irked by the question.

"He was right in front of me." She said irritably, not sure why he would ask such a stupid question. Jace continued to stare at her and it reminded her uncomfortably of when he'd stared at her naked on the bed after finding out she was a virgin.

Right before he told her to get dressed.

Ugh, she wanted to forget this night.

She shifted her face away and leaned her head back, willing the train speakers to shout out her stop.

Moments later, she got her wish, and they poured off the train, up through the subway to the street. Her apartment was only a couple of blocks away. _Finally, an end to this horrible night. _

"Clary…" Jace said her name, and she wished her heart wouldn't stir like that, "Can I see your hand?"

"Why?" She asked, suspicious.

"I want to read your fortune, see if our palm lines match up and we're meant to be bffs forever." He rolled his eyes, tugging her hand up and looking at it closely.

"You're not left handed, are you?"

"No." She pulled her wrist from his hands, maybe a little too hard. He shot her an annoyed look, but Clary wasn't sorry.

"Why do you go to Pandemonium? You don't look the type, neither does Simon." He asked, his expression like ice.

"Neither do you." She pointed out. He was quiet, waiting for her real response. Clary shrugged. "I like it there. The outfits are cool, and there's just something about it that feels familiar. I don't know."

Jace snorted in derisive laughter.

"You don't know why you do a lot of things, do you?"

"_You've never done this before, have you?"_

"_No, not really."_

_"Why now?"_

"_I don't know."_

Clary felt her cheeks grow hot with anger again. She sped up, wanting desperately to get home and hide under her pillows for a few thousand years to forget how humiliating this night had been.

"You're an ass."

"Hey. I walked you home. At least call me something noble, like a stallion."

"What?" She interrupted him. He was smirking at her again. She shook her head out of frustration. They were almost there.

"Alright, well, thanks for fulfilling your moral duty. You're free now." Clary couldn't look at him as she turned to enter her building.

Jace didn't answer, he just let her go.

* * *

"Simon, I don't want to go back in there."

They were passing Pandemonium. She hadn't been back in months. Her mom was in one of her extra-strict moods this week.

Plus, the last time she'd gone there, she'd met _him_.

"Come on Clary, I've got to talk to the manager about switching the time for our gig. It's right on the way." Simon swerved to cross the road.

"We're not dressed for it." Clary tried.

"We're never dressed for it. " Simon laughed.

_What's the chance he'll be there tonight? Really? You'll never see him again- New York is so big. _

"Fine. I know you just want to get that fruity drink again. You could call the manager on the phone." Clary grumbled, checking for cars before darting after him. The bouncer let them in after a slight grin at their plain outfits.

The pulsing lights were red, purple and green tonight and the music something close to daft punk. Clary almost covered her ears as the sound hit her, it was so loud compared to outside. The same bodies, the same eccentric getups, the same throbbing crowd as that night.

Clary swallowed hard.

"Let's do this fast." She yelled to Simon over the pulsing music.

He nodded.

Clary found a little table off to the side to wait for him as he ducked into the management office, watching the dancers to pass the time. An Asian girl with flares of blue in her hair and what looked like a giant dragon tattoo up her back was putting on some kind of impromptu, show-off performance with hoops near the middle of the dance floor so Clary watched that for a while. She dragged her sketchbook from her schoolbag and started to sketch her.

"Do you think there's some sort of secret ingredient in this thing that makes it so good? Like, 'tears of emo' or 'kisses blown by goth', you know something they couldn't put on the back of the bottle?" Just as she predicted, Simon had bought the same violent-orange-swirled-with-neon-purple drink as before.

"I thought we were going to make it quick." Clary complained. She couldn't help it. Every moment she was in here was a moment she could run into _him_ again.

Just the thought of seeing him brought the ghost of her humiliation to the surface and made her want to scream into a pillow.

"What's the rush? It's early, Clary." Simon frowned. "We don't have to be home for hours."

Clary pushed down her nerves. She shouldn't take it out on Simon.

"How do you think they get it to be that color?" She wondered, trying to put her mind off of _him_. "Aren't you worried it could be colored with, like, poison tree frog skin cells or something?"

"Then poison tree frog skin cells are _delicious_." Simon slurped noisily through the straw.

Clary laughed. Talking to Simon was easy. He could even make her feel at home in a place like this.

Clary watched as Simon's drink got lower and lower, trying to hide her anxiety at leaving and enjoy his presence.

But then she saw _him_.

He definitely looked like he was in the right place this time. He was in a group of two other people, dressed similarly in hooded black leather jackets, black pants, tall leather boots and-

_Did they bring_ knives_ in here? How the hell did they manage to get past the bouncer?_

Clary couldn't help staring- he looked like a different person. Next to him, a dark haired boy was talking into his ear and gesturing at something off in the distance and a beautiful dark-haired girl was caressing her _whip. She brought a whip. What level of kinky do you have to be to bring a whip to a place like this. _

Nobody seemed to notice the abundance of weapons on the group, though Clary was frozen to her seat. In fact, nobody seemed to be looking at them at all. Even for Pandemonium, Clary thought these three stood out at least a little bit.

If Simon turned and saw her 'friend' from before dressed like the Dark Avenger and carrying a small arsenal, Clary had no idea how she would explain it.

Then Jace noticed her staring at him and the world seemed to fall away around her.

His expression softened into something like pity before it melted into surprise. Jace looked behind him- as though she could possibly be _looking at someone else_- and then back at her. Clary looked away quickly.

_Please don't come over here. Please have slept with so many girls you don't even remember what I look like. _

"Hey little Mundie."

Clary heard his voice, but she didn't understand his words. Maybe he wasn't looking at her.

She glanced over. His companions were threading their way through the crowd, headed in the opposite direction of her, but he was standing three feet away from her and he was definitely looking at her.

She quickly glanced at Simon, but he hadn't noticed Jace yet.

She put a hand to her head and looked at him hard, looked over the leather hooded jacket, the strange tattoos showing on his neck and arms that hadn't been there a few months ago, and barely recognized him. His expression shifted from amusement to surprise again.

"So you really can see me." He said, his voice so low she barely heard it over the music.

"You look different." Was all she could say. _Different _was an understatement. She hated the fact that she was still, undeniably, attracted to him.

Simon looked up from his drink and glanced at Jace in confusion.

"What did you say?" He called over the music.

"I was talking to Jace." Clary replied in a loud voice. Simon looked around, right past Jace, and asked,

"Jace is here?"

Clary gestured at Jace, standing merely a few feet from her, and said again,

"Jeez, your eyesight must be getting worse!"

Simon squinted at where she was pointing, but nothing.

_He can't see him. _ She realized with a jolt. She looked back at Jace, bewildered and frightened.

"I don't see him!" Simon confirmed, asking for an explanation she couldn't give.

Clary's mouth fell open as she stared at Jace's arrogant, cool expression. He shrugged, as though she'd asked the time and he didn't have his watch on him at the moment.

"Come on." He grabbed her arm and pulled her off the stool. Clary was so shocked she just slid off and followed him. Simon squinted at the previous Jace area, perplexed.

"Where are you going?" He called in surprise.

"Uh, bathroom!"

She followed her apparently invisible former almost-lover as he dragged her through the crowd, back to the alcove of the bathroom. He let her go as soon as they were standing in the hallway where the music was quiet enough that they could talk.

"I have to take care of something. Stay here until I come back." He said, turning to leave.

"Why can I see you and Simon can't?" She grabbed at his arm. Jace paused, looking at her with hardened eyes.

"I'll be back."

"No, tell me first!"

He wrenched his arm from her grasp and ignored her, turning to melt back into the crowd.

_If he thinks I'm just going to sit here and wait…. _

Clary dove after him immediately, following a few feet behind him as he made his way through the throng back to his leather-clad group. The dark haired leather-clad girl of their little group was staring intently at a black boy with long dreadlocks who was kissing the neck of a girl up against the wall in a corner of the club. The girl looked like she wasn't enjoying it very much.

"He's going to drain her dry. So careless! Out in the open like this? Any downworlder could recognize what he's doing." She heard her say over the music.

"I doubt he'd notice if we just stabbed him in the back." The dark haired boy replied, disgust written all over his face.

"Allow me." Jace passed by them, approaching the couple swiftly and gracefully, walking the way he danced, and pulled a long silver dagger from his waist. Clary's throat constricted. She wanted to scream, warn them, but she couldn't.

Then the dagger plunged through the back of the boy and Clary's throat released her from her paralysis. She screamed. Loud.

The dark-haired girl and boy in leather jumped, Jace spun around, and the people dancing within a five-foot radius looked at her like she was crazy.

The boy fell to the ground, twitching and jerking. The girl he'd pressed up against the wall was blinking rapidly, swaying on her knees, but she didn't seem to realize that her partner had just been _stabbed in the back_. She looked like she was waking from a dream. She didn't even glance at Jace, just stumbled off a bit clumsily to sit at a table with what must have been her friends.

_Was he invisible too? _ All three members of the leather-clad group were staring at her now. She turned on her heel then, and started to run. Fear pumped through her veins, lighting her step. She bumped into people as she ran, but she didn't care.

_I just witnessed a murder. He's part of some sort of invisible gang and now they've seen my face, they know I know. _

She didn't stop until she hit the doors to the club. She slammed into them, nearly smacking the bouncer with the door as she did, and her feet hit the pavement, her heart slamming in her chest. She heard the sound of running feet behind her.

* * *

Jace kept his eyes trained on Clary's bouncing red hair as he gained on her. Once again, he had the advantage- there was no way she could outrun him with those short legs.

_Stubborn girl. She should have just stayed put like I told her to. _

When he was close enough, he reached for her and grabbed her by the arms. Clary let a scream go that, if he weren't glamoured, might have convinced the entire block he was mugging her. As it was, however, she just looked like a crazy person screaming and flailing around in thin air.

He clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her roughly into an alley, feeling a bit guilty. She screamed and thrashed under his hands, trying to hit him any way she could.

"I'm not going to hurt you, you impossible Mundane!" He growled in her ear, smoothing down her hair to try to soothe her. Clary settled down a bit, but he was sure she didn't believe him. "I just want to talk to you." He clarified.

Her screaming subsided. He let her mouth free but he wasn't foolish enough to let her go.

"What do you want from me? I promise I won't tell anyone what you did, just let me go." Clary was shivering under him, her voice hoarse from her screams.

"Tell whoever you want, no one will blame me for killing a vampire who would have killed a human."

"A what?" Her voice was breathy with fear.

"A vampire. I killed a filthy, rabid downworlder, little Mundie, could you relax? Jeez, you'd think I slaughtered the Angel from your reaction."

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Clary broke free from his arms. He let her, fairly convinced she was confused enough to stay for the explanation.

"How can you see us, but you have no idea what we are? How is this possible? You aren't a shadowhunter. You must have had dealings with us before, Mundie."

"I've never met anything as strange as you." Clary shook her head, her cheeks red with blood and fear.

"Well then one of your parents must be a cast-out shadowhunter."

"My mom's completely normal. My dad died before I was born." Clary whispered, still looking at him as though he were some sort of fascinating, disgusting object she wanted to tear her gaze away from but couldn't.

"Probably your dad then. If he married a Mundane he would have been cast out from the Clave. If he died before explaining his past to your mom, you would have no idea about your origins." Jace said, almost to himself.

"I'm perfectly normal!" Clary's voice was almost a scream of hysteria. Jace hated dealing with hysterical women.

"So does your definition of normal include seeing things that other's can't and screaming at thin air? Because in most people's dictionaries, that's under 'crazy'." Jace's tone was clipped.

Clary was at a loss for words.

"Good, we agree. So if you're not crazy, and let's pretend for a second that you aren't, you must be part shadowhunter and not realize it." Jace nodded at her. "Congratulations, you just took a step up in the hierarchy of the world. Not a big one, but a step up nonetheless."

"What is a shadowhunter?"

"It's me. It's what I am. It's this." He held his arms up, and her eyes trailed over his runes. "And this." He pulled his angelic dagger from its sheath and Clary jumped back, gasping with fear. "We do what you saw in there: kill demons, or downworlders who break the law."

"Wait." Her expression changed from terrified to calm yet unreadable in half a second. "You're not allowed to marry 'Mundies'- what you thought I was?"

Jace wasn't sure where she was going with this.

"Yes. It's against our laws."

"But you can sleep with them?" She was starting to look pissed.

"It's frowned upon." He shrugged. "But yes."

Clary looked like she was thinking about slapping him. He took a small step back as a precaution.

"I never have before, but I made an exception for you." He added as an afterthought.

"Oh, thanks." She rolled her eyes, really looking at him like he was disgusting now. "I feel so special." She muttered under her breath.

"I could probably marry you now, since we've deduced you're half shadowhunter." He mused, intending for this to improve her mood. It didn't.

"Jesus, what is this, some kind of new-age racism?" Clary fumed. How quickly she forgot her terror.

"Not really racism so much as species…ism. It's much more logical."

"Whatever." Clary brushed off his explanation. "What makes you so special? You look just like a 'Mundie' to me." She spat the word out like a curse.

"Shadowhunters have angel blood in them. That's why we can use runes," he gestured to his arm again, "and why we can see demons and their spawn."  
Clary blinked.

"I'm part angel?"

"A smaller part than I am, but yes."

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME."

Jace cocked an eyebrow.

"Well that wasn't very angelic. Maybe I'm wrong."

Clary was laughing. Not so much from his dashing sense of humor, more from hysteria.

"Oh my god- I am, I'm insane." She whispered, sobering up. "I'm a certified looney."

Jace rolled his eyes.

"You're stubborn and a nuisance, but you aren't insane."

Just then her phone rang.

"Mom?"

* * *

_You guys know how this part goes- demon attack, mom kidnapped, clary fights off demon, gets stung by demon, Jace saves her by marking her, wakes up in the institute, meets Isabelle and Alec and Hodge, so forth. I considered changing the story completely and just having Clary be part Shadowhunter(from a nameless shadowhunter dad rather than Valentine), but I decided to follow the storyline of the book instead. So I'll be skipping around a bit in this story, since this is fanfiction and you guys know the characters, the rules, and the world already. I intend to follow the basic outline of the books, but with alterations, some major and some minor. I'll be zooming in on Clace moments and reimagining them with this new dynamic, basically. If you like it, please review! If you don't like it, review too! Review!_


	3. Poisoned

**_The following is a passage from the book to orient you to our place in the story:_**

"_Here." Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her face. "Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls." _

_Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively. "I don't think—"_

"_So what are you going to do?" Simon asked sharply. "Cut her head open to get at it?"_

_Jace's eyes sparked, but he said calmly, "Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories."_

"_You hate the Silent Brothers," protested Isabelle. _

"_I don't hate them," said Jace candidly. "I'm afraid of them. It's not the same thing."_

"_I thought you said they were librarians," said Clary. _

"_They are librarians." _

_Simon whistled. "Those must be some killer late fees." _

"_The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are," interrupted Hodge, sounding as if he were running out of patience. "In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them—" He broke off and Clary heard Alec's voice in her head, saying: They mutilate themselves. "Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body." _

"_They can read minds?" Clary said in a small voice. _

"_Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters." _

"_I don't know," said Simon, "it doesn't sound so bad to me. I'd rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off." _

"_Then you're a bigger idiot than you look," said Jace, regarding him with scorn. _

"_Jace is right," said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. "The Silent Brothers are really creepy." Hodge's hand was clenched on the table. _

"_They are very powerful," he said. "They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man's mind the way you might crack open a walnut— and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire." _

_Clary looked at Jace, appalled. _

"_You want to give me to them?" _

"_I want them to help you." Jace leaned across the table, so close she could see the darker amber flecks in his light eyes. "Maybe we don't get to look for the Cup," he said softly. "Maybe the Clave will do that. But what's in your mind belongs to you. Someone's hidden secrets there, secrets you can't see. Don't you want to know the truth about your own life?" _

"_I don't want someone else inside my head," she said weakly. She knew he was right, but the idea of turning herself over to beings that even the Shadowhunters thought were creepy sent a chill through her blood._

"_I'll go with you," said Jace. "I'll stay with you while they do it."_

"_That's enough." Simon had stood up from the table, red with anger. "Leave her alone." _

_Alec glanced over at Simon as if he'd just noticed him, raking tumbled black hair out of his eyes and blinking. "What are you still doing here, mundane?" _

_Simon ignored him. _

"_I said, leave her alone." _

_Jace glanced over at him, a slow, sweetly poisonous glance._

"_Alec is right," he said. "The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. Especially when they've worn out their welcome." _

_Isabelle got up and took Simon's arm. _

"_I'll show him out." For a moment it looked like he might resist her, but he caught Clary's eye across the table as she shook her head slightly. He subsided. Head up, he let Isabelle lead him from the room. Clary stood up._

"_I'm tired," she said. "I want to go to sleep." _

"_You've hardly eaten anything—," Jace protested. She brushed aside his reaching hand. "I'm not hungry."_

_It was cooler in the hallway than it had been in the kitchen. Clary leaned against the wall, pulling at her shirt, which was sticking to the cold sweat on her chest. Far down the hall she could see Isabelle's and Simon's retreating figures, swallowed up by shadows. She watched them go silently, a shivery odd feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. When had Simon become Isabelle's responsibility, instead of hers? If there was one thing she was learning from all this, it was how easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you'd have forever._

* * *

Jace caught up to her in the hall, his feet padding softly against the stone floor. Even his footsteps were somehow quieter than a normal person, hunter-like.

Jace took one look at her face and glanced down the hall just in time to see Isabelle and Simon's back turn around a corner. Clary thought she might have seen a slight sneer on his otherwise cool expression.

"Jealous?" Jace asked her simply.

"It's 100 degrees outside, and in the morning I'm scheduled for a mental lobotomy. I don't have the energy to be jealous, even if I had a reason for it." Clary shook her head. She was so exhausted, she could fall asleep right there.

Jace's eyes trailed over her sweaty body. For once, he seemed to have nothing in his arsenal of wit to reply with.

"I know I'm disgusting, you don't have to be rude." Clary frowned, uncomfortable under his gaze. Her eyes were getting unbearably heavy.

He laughed, though it was slightly scornful.

"Why don't you just eat something? You'll need your strength for tomorrow. You don't exactly look ready to tame lions right now."

Clary glanced up at him. His gold hair was curling softly around his ears, his tawny eyes thoughtful as he held hers. He'd saved her from the ravener demon, even though she'd slapped him and ran off. He'd carried her here when she passed out. He was harsh with his words, but he often seemed gentle with her, and there was something about his blunt, snide comments that always hit home with her. She respected what he said, what he thought, reluctant though she was to admit it to herself. Her initial anger with him was fading quickly, replaced with something else entirely, though Clary wasn't sure what yet.

Suddenly, unbidden, a flash of his chest against hers, his unfocused eyes as he ravaged her lips, his golden hair falling into her face as his hand slid between their bodies to massage her-

"I know I'm stunning, but you could hide your lust for me a little better." A lazy grin lifted Jace's lips. Clary blushed heavily, and turned her face immediately so he couldn't see. _He's joking. You were staring at him, so he was kidding around. He doesn't know you were actually thinking about… that night._

They'd swept it under the rug and not spoken of it since, but she always felt it's presence just beneath the surface. The others didn't know.

Clary wondered briefly if she would still do it, knowing what she knew about him now, if she would still go with him if he asked her. He wasn't just some stranger in a club anymore: he was snarky, rude, intense, fearless to the point of recklessness, arrogant, vain, and very kind to her.

She wanted to say no.

"_Clary." _Jace's breathless whisper in her ear ran through her head, spreading shivers through her body. _"You're beautiful." _She had thought she was floating, but it was his lips on her that had made her feel like she was, the heat of his body.

Suddenly the world was spinning.

"Clary, you look like you're about to collapse." Jace's actual voice jarred her from her introspection. She put a hand to her head, feeling the sweat there.

"It's hot." She mumbled. She pressed her back against the cool stone wall, and Jace put a hand out to steady her.

"Maybe you should skip dinner after all." Jace frowned. _Don't look at me like that. _ She thought desperately. _Don't look so closely, you'll know what I'm thinking. _

"If you sleep here, you're going to trip someone. Hodge already has a permanent limp, he can't afford a broken leg." Jace wrapped an arm around her and started to walk her down the hall.

"I'm fine!" She insisted weakly, but honestly it felt good to lean on someone. She'd forgotten how strong his arms were. Still, she shoved him off.

"Alright, Droolly, walk by yourself then." Jace let her go, frustrated, and she immediately stumbled, grabbing ahold of him.

"What are you, drunk? Did you make wine coolers from your juice when no one was looking?" He laughed, but Clary was in no mood. She was hot. She was exhausted. If she didn't find somewhere to lie down soon, she was going to kill someone or pass out. Definitely one or the other.

Jace secured his arm around her, holding her tighter this time. She didn't try to insist she could do it herself.

"Are you?" She shot back, wondering absently where they were going.

"Yeah, that made sense." Jace snorted.

"Here." Jace steered her through a door into a plain room with a freshly made bed, a dresser, a closet, a lamp and her backpack propped against the wall. He plopped her down on the bed. Clary fell back immediately, closing her eyes against the cool cotton.

"Clary."

"Mmmmhhm, thanks for the help." She whispered.

"Clary… you're sweaty. Really sweaty."

"Ok, you can leave me alone now." Clary growled, turning over on her side without opening her eyes, trying to hide herself from his view.

"You should change into something cooler before you fall asleep."

Clary cracked one eye, peeking up at him. He wasn't looking at her, just staring at the blank wall with a strange intensity. For someone who always looked cool and collected, arrogant and bored, at this moment he looked vaguely… uncomfortable.

"Too tired." She mumbled into the cloth. Sleep was pulling at her, dragging her down into blissful darkness even as she spoke.

"Do you want some help?"

"With what?"

"Getting dressed."

Both eyes popped open then.

"I'm not an invalid, Jace. I can dress myself. Jeez, get out of here, you're being pervy."

"Can you?" He sounded irritated now. "You don't look like it. What's wrong with you, anyway?"

"Dunno. My head's all fuzzy. My arms feel heavy."  
"Just sit up." He sounded even more irritated now, but his hands were incredibly gentle. Clary moaned as he pulled her from her comfortable recline into a sitting position. Her eyes were still closed, it was impossible to keep them open, but then he tugged her shirt swiftly up over her head. Clary's mouth fell open and she immediately covered her chest with her hands. Well, now she was awake.

"Jesus!" She squealed. Jace didn't even look at her, busy digging around in the dresser next to her. She already felt better with the shirt off, the air brushing over her skin and cooling her.

"I think you might still have some ravener poison in your system. It's affecting you suddenly because you're so exhausted, like a bad virus that spikes back up when you're tired. Your immune system doesn't have the energy to fight it."

"Give me my shirt back!" Clary demanded. Jace turned from the closet, his eyes fixed determinedly on her face,

"Here." He tossed her something. Clary reached for it, but her hand moved slower than she intended, and her blurry vision didn't help much. She missed and it fell pathetically to the floor.

Jace sat next to her, picked the shirt up off the floor, and lifted both her arms off her chest, much to her embarrassment.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before, Clary. Or touched. Or tasted." He grinned devilishly at her. "You don't have to be so modest."

Clary was burning up, but her cheeks flared several degrees hotter at that comment.

"That doesn't give you a blanket invitation to look whenever you want." She managed to sputter out, even as her shirt obstructed her view. Jace undid the neck hole as it stuck on her nose. His hand lingered on her nose, brushing down to her lips before he hurriedly withdrew it. Clary was nervous at how close he was. Somehow this felt more intimate than just being half-naked.

"Pants." He said, his eyes caught on hers, his expression foreign.

"I can do it!" Clary insisted quickly before he had a chance to surprise her as he had with her shirt.

"Just go get them for me, I can do the rest. Don't look!" Clary struggled to squirm out of her shorts. There was definitely something wrong with her. She'd thought it was merely exhaustion, but Jace had to be right about the ravener poison; she was uncoordinated and her vision was swimming. She fell back against the bed when she finally managed to pull the damn things off.

"This looks like it might fit. It's probably big on you, but it's thin cotton so it'll breathe and keep you cool. Assuming, of course, you'd rather sleep in shorts. Personally, I sleep naked in this kind of heat."

"You trying to get me naked, Wayland?" She joked, though from her awkward position on the bed, trying to pull herself up and failing, it was more embarrassing than anything.

"I'm not trying, I'm succeeding." He walked over, eyes comically averted, and held a hand out to her, which she reluctantly grabbed after a few tries. He tugged her back up into a sitting position, handing her the shorts.

"Do you want me to get Isabelle?" He asked curtly as she clumsily bent to pull on the shorts.

Clary sighed. She didn't particularly feel like seeing the dark haired Simon Slayer at the moment.

"_Now_ you ask?" She shot him a look. He grinned and shrugged in response, unabashed. Clary continued, "You don't have to do that. You're right, you've seen it all before… it's just embarrassing, that's all." Clary pulled once, twice, and on the third time her shorts came up to her waist. She immediately fell back against the bed.

_Aaaaahhhh…. Sleep. _

"Don't be embarrassed. I told you before- you're pretty, Clary."

* * *

Jace thought maybe he should leave, but something held him in the room. She looked bad- as bad Clary could look to him- but she seemed more comfortable now that she was curled up in the spare Institute clothes. For some reason he was still inexplicably worried about her. He couldn't remember worrying about a girl like this, since, well, ever. Isabelle usually had the Lightwoods to fuss over her, so Jace rarely had to worry for her in the same capacity, but Clary had no one. No one but that infuriating Mundane boy, who Jace hardly felt was a worthy substitute for parents and a family. Ever since he'd met her, he'd felt the need to protect her, take care of her, and he had no idea why or what made her so special.

Jace returned to the kitchen where he found Alec still sipping water and staring off broodily into the distance.

"Contemplating our existential dilemma?" Jace wondered aloud, breaking through Alec's concentration on nothing.

"Jace." He nodded at him. "Off to bed?" He asked. There was something tight in Alec's eyes ever since Clary had arrived. Jace got the feeling he wasn't quite as inexplicably protective of her as himself.

"Just getting some water for Clary before bed."

Alec's eyes darkened.

"Now you're her personal guard _and _servant?"

"She's sick with ravener poison again. If she could get it herself, believe me, she would be." Jace replied lightly.

"Again? She's such a nuisance."

"Yeah, poisoned people are so obnoxious. How thoughtless of them."

"It's just one thing after another with her." Alec continued, undeterred by Jace's sarcasm, "I'll be glad when we're rid of her."

"Careful, Alec. You're starting to sound like a grumpy old man who sits on his porch and shoots people for crossing unwittingly onto his territory."

"Do you have to do all this stuff for her?" Alec asked suddenly, and Jace was struck by his intensity.

"_You_ want to go pour this down her throat?" Jace asked, arching a brow as he leaned back against the counter. Alec deflated.

"That's what I thought. Get some sleep, Alec, it might do you good."

Alec didn't answer, his serious eyes following him from the kitchen. Jace's next stop was the library, hoping Hodge was still awake.

Luckily he was behind his desk, writing something he seemed very intent on.

"Something the matter?" Hodge looked up when Jace closed the door quietly behind him.

"Clary's sick with the ravener poison again."

"Another ravener attack?" Hodge tensed, alarmed.

"No. It didn't completely leave her system, and she's exhausted-"

"Ah. Right. It will pass by morning. In the meantime, make sure she stays hydrated."

"I know, not my first demon poisoning." Jace grinned, waving the water glass around to draw his attention to it. "There isn't anything to take the edge off for ravener poison, is there?"

"Just sleep. There's nothing more I can give her." Hodge replied, his eyes strange as they flicked from the water glass back to Jace.

"Ok." Jace turned to leave.

"Jace."

"Yes?"

Hodge paused, his eyes reminding Jace of Alec's- intense and tight around the edges.

"Brother Jeremiah will be here early tomorrow. Get some sleep soon."

"Alright."

Everyone was weird today.

Jace padded back to Clary's room, opening the door. He was surprised to find she'd ripped her shirt off while sleeping.

"Can't pull it off when you're awake, but I leave you sleeping for ten minutes and it's halfway across the room." He muttered to himself, gathering the shirt off the floor. It was damp on his fingers.

He sat next to her on the bed, shaking her shoulder gently to wake her. Clary moaned and weakly pushed at his hand.

"Clary, you've lost half your water weight in sweat today. If you don't drink, you'll get worse."

Clary moaned again, a complaint as he lifted her from her sleeping position into a sitting position.

She did not look pleased, but she drank the water deeply when he held it to her lips. Her head fell against his shoulder, her soft red hair brushing his cheek. He tightened his grip on her damp shoulder to keep her from slipping away.

He was trying not to look down, it felt cheap when she was asleep, but she was right there, and her skin was so smooth and pale, shiny with sweat, it caught the light. He glanced down against his will at her small but perfect breasts, concealed by a simple light pink bra, and immediately felt the powerful attraction to her he'd felt that first night in Pandemonium when she'd caught his eyes across the crowd.

Clary sighed softly and licked her lips, moving her head away from the glass.

"You have to drink it all, Clary, then I'll let you sleep." He whispered in her ear, smoothing her hair down.

"You think I'm pretty?" She whispered, tilting her face, her green eyes catching on his.

"Of course I think you're pretty, why else would I drag you out of that club so fast?" Jace scoffed, uncomfortable with where this situation was heading. She was sick and tired and half naked, and she was looking at him like she was none of those things. He shifted his grip so she wasn't leaning quite so heavily on him.

"No one's ever told me that before."

"Well, that'll still be true in the morning when you remember none of this." Jace couldn't help but chuckle. He'd been poisoned before. several times before- or as Alec liked to put it, an unnecessary number of times. It had a way of tampering with memory. Usually he was in the opposite position, with Alec forcing water down his throat.

"Nobody's ever touched me like that before, either." Clary muttered. Jace paused as he lifted the glass to her lips.

"Sorry, I don't think you can sit up on your own." Jace shifted again, uncomfortable. He hated to force her t-shirt back on when she'd clearly been uncomfortable enough to take it off in her sleep.

"Not now. Before." She closed her eyes, and Jace was sure she was going to drift off again, sitting up and all, so he shook her.

"Clary, finish this and I'll let you sleep." He said, a bit rougher than he intended. He'd accidentally looked again, his concentration broken by her comment. _Not now. Before. _

Before.

He hadn't mentioned it, he knew she was still pretty upset by how their night together ended, but the part leading up to it… well, he wanted to do it again. And again. Every time he looked at her, that's what he remembered; the taste of her skin, the sound of her soft little moans as he touched her, the wonder she looked at him with… Usually he just wanted girls, then wanted them to leave him alone. But he wanted her all the time, and it was unsettling. Confusing.

He finished with the water and hurriedly set her back down before his self-control broke again and his eyes wandered.

He filled the water glass once more and set it on the dresser next to her. He left her with a light blanket next to her just in case the night cooled the heat.

* * *

"Clary" Jace said softly. She looked much better this morning, her skin returned to it's natural pale, no trace of the sickly green from last night. "Clary." He repeated louder.

He sat next to her on the bed, brushing a hand, without a thought, against her cheek.

"Clary, wake up."

Clary's hand shot out towards him suddenly, her eyes opening with a frightened swiftness. Jace caught her wrist in his, his shadowhunter instincts kicking in. Clary blinked at him, horror in her eyes as she struggled to recognize him.

"Jace?"

"Yeah." He answered, startled. He kept forgetting she had shadowhunter instincts. She looked so much like a Mundane without runes on her.

Clary clutched the light blanket he'd set out for her around her, realizing she wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Let go of me." She said, still a bit disoriented.

"Sorry. You tried to hit me the second I said your name." Jace explained, loosening his iron grip on her wrist. She looked around at the room as though she was seeing it for the first time before her eyes rested on him again.

"I'm a little jumpy, I guess. How did I get here? I don't remember…" Her forehead creased and she seemed to looking at something distant as she strained to recall last night. Jace had suspected as much. He'd had many a blackout night Alec insisted he was wide-awake for.

Jace decided to lie, taking pity on her, which he almost never did. She looked disoriented and confused now, but she would eventually realize someone had dressed her and he didn't particularly want to give her more reason to feel embarrassed around him.

"I found you asleep on the floor in the hallway. Hodge helped me get you into bed, Isabelle dressed you. We thought you'd be more comfortable in a guest room than the in the infirmary."

"Wow. I don't remember anything." Clary ran her hands through her hair, pushing draggled curls out of her green eyes. "What time is it anyway?"

Jace felt a familiar stab of longing for her, and it startled him more than her impressive sleep instincts had. It was familiar around Clary, but unfamiliar to him in general. He had no idea why he wanted nothing more than to kiss her lips right now, taste the salty sweat of her skin. He withdrew his hands further from her instead.

"About five."

"In the _morning_?" She looked at him like he'd just used a profane word. "You better have a good reason for waking me up."

Jace rolled his eyes.

"Mental lobotomy appointment, remember? Why, were you having good dreams?"

"I don't remember." She was staring as she had last night, a look on her face as though she might remember if she stared hard enough. Jace stood up, breaking her gaze.

"One of the Silent Brothers is here to see you. Hodge sent me to wake you up. Actually, he offered to wake you up himself, but since it's five a.m., I figured you'd be less cranky if you had something nice to look at."

"Meaning you?"

"What else?"

He cracked a sardonic smile. Clary almost smiled back.

* * *

_This is from about page 160-164 (in my kindle, which I'm 95% sure doesn't have the same page number as the real book so I don't know why I'm telling you this). This always seemed like a strange scene to me- Clary just passed out in the hallway? REALLY? That's actually what happened? I don't think so (well, clearly, since I just rewrote the whole thing). Why wouldn't she remember falling asleep at least? When was the last time that happened to you sober? Naw, sexy times with Jace ensued for sure, with ravener poison as the excuse __. Hope you enjoyed it! Please review, I love reading them and they inspire me to write more! _


	4. The Greenhouse

**Orienting Section: **

_Now where am I going to sleep? Not that she minded sharing a bed with Simon, but he hadn't exactly left her any room. She considered poking him awake, but he looked so peaceful. Besides, she wasn't sleepy. She was just reaching for the sketchpad under the pillow when a knock sounded on the door. _

_She padded barefoot across the room and turned the doorknob quietly. It was Jace. Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold. The bruises on his face were already fading from purple to faint gray, and his hands were behind his back. _

"_Were you asleep?" he asked. There was no contrition in his voice, only curiosity. _

"_No." Clary stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her. "Why would you think that?"_

_He eyed her baby blue cotton tank top and sleep shorts set. _

"_No reason." _

"_I was in bed most of the day," she said, which was technically true. Seeing him, her jitter level had shot up about a thousand percent, but she saw no reason to share that information. "What about you? Aren't you exhausted?" _

_He shook his head. "Much like the postal service, demon hunters never sleep. 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these—'"_

"_You'd be in major trouble if gloom of night did stay you," she pointed out. He grinned. Unlike his hair, his teeth weren't perfect. An upper incisor was slightly, endearingly chipped. She gripped her elbows. It was chilly in the hallway and she could feel goose bumps starting up her arms. _

"_What are you doing here, anyway?" _

"' _Here' as in your bedroom or 'here' as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you're asking whether it's all just a cosmic coincidence or there's a greater meta-ethical purpose to life, well, that's a puzzler for the ages. I mean, simple ontological reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but—"_

"_I'm going back to bed." Clary reached for the doorknob. He slid nimbly between her and the door. _

"_I'm here," he said, "because Hodge reminded me it was your birthday."_

* * *

Clary let an exasperated sigh go.

"Not until tomorrow."

He shrugged.

"There's no reason not to start celebrating now."

Clary eyed him.

"You're avoiding Isabelle and Alec."

"Of course. Everyone wants to talk to me, but you. I bet you don't want to talk to me." Strangely, Jace only wanted to talk to her right now.

"No, I want to eat. I'm starving."

Jace produced a paper bag from behind his back.

"I stole it from the kitchen when Isabelle wasn't looking. I make a mean cheese sandwich." He winked.

Clary considered him.

He'd wanted to follow her into that hotel to make sure she stayed safe. He'd watched her stand up to the incredibly creepy Silent Brothers, risk her life for her friend without a pause, and felt his heart jump for her at every moment of danger. Not to mention his powerful reaction to that dress Isabelle forced on her for Magnus's party.

He was unequivocally, undeniably in love with her.

Jace had never been in love so he wasn't quite sure what to do with his feelings. Clary had a lot on her plate right now—her mother's kidnapping and the ever-present worry for her, not to mention finding out about her shadowhunter heritage were both far more than enough to focus on. Pile on his feelings for her? Jace had no intention of making them known, not yet, but he wouldn't let her spend her birthday in a chaotic, miserable, adrenaline-fueled state. These strange new feelings wouldn't allow that.

"Alright. It's a little late for a picnic, though, don't you think? I mean, Central Park is full of-"

"Faeries, I know." Jace waved a hand.

"I was going to say muggers, but sure, that too. I pity the mugger who tries to mess with you, though."

"That's a wise attitude, I commend you for that." Jace said, smug. "I was thinking of the greenhouse, actually."

Clary didn't say anything, just closed her mouth, her eyes shining. Jace took that as agreement and led her through the Institute to the stairs that opened to the greenhouse.

"It's dark." Clary said, interrupting the long silence. Jace glanced back at her as they climbed the stairs. He offered a hand. Clary hesitantly accepted. Only a few days ago, she would have refused his hand on principle, complaining that he was babying her or acting condescending or something else ridiculous. Jace saw no reason to drop his hand from hers as they arrived at the top of the landing, where the twinkling lights of Manhattan shone through the glass walls of the greenhouse and illuminated the darkness. Clary glanced at him, confused at what was now, clearly, a show of affection. Jace dropped her hand, but not without a small smile.

Jace settled down on the floor, next to a green shrub with little flowers. Clary, still a bit hesitant, folded her knees under her a few feet from him. They dug into the food.

The conversation wasn't exactly easy. The electricity between them crackled and popped when their eyes met, Jace could feel it in his spine and fingertips. He found himself talking about things he hadn't talked to anyone about, not even Alec—namely his eccentric childhood and his father. The hole that usually opened up inside him when he even thought of such painful memories was a little smaller, a little more bearable with Clary around. He found he could speak without a lump in his throat, without wanting to throw himself recklessly into a nest of demons and fight until the external pain distracted him sufficiently from the pain inside. Clary's past was just as strange, just as painful in its own way. She understood pain; he didn't have to explain it, she just knew it. She knew what it was to lose a parent, perhaps not to the extent Jace had, but it was enough.

The strike of the clock broke their conversation.

"Midnight." Jace interrupted himself mid-sentence. He offered a hand to her again to pull her to her feet. Clary looked bewildered as he directed her gaze towards a plant a little ways off from where they were sitting.

Jace watched her beautiful expression as thr flower bloomed, adoring the way her eyes lit up with wonder and her lips parted in a soundless gasp. Then her smile came, creeping over the wonder and lighting her face with a beauty he had never noticed in other girls before. She glowed to him. Not physically, of course, but in his mind a fuzzy halo of warmth surrounded her.

"Do they bloom every night?"

"Only at midnight." Her eyes were the same green of the plants. "Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray." Jace tried to keep the husky wonder from his own voice as he watched her reaction. _I had to see you smile today. It was a selfish need on my part, but for once I'm glad for my selfishness. _

"Thank you." She said, her voice soft, vulnerable.

Jace dug the witchlight from his pocket and presented part II of his birthday gift. She rewarded him with another gorgeous smile. He wanted to throw himself on her, kiss every part of her, but he held back.

The tension between them was almost unbearable. The sweet scent of the greenhouse, the sparkling lights of the city, the heat of the air-

_This was a bad idea,_ Jace realized suddenly. He'd picked the most romantic place possible for a nighttime birthday dinner, and he'd swore to himself that he would keep his feelings under control until Clary was in a place to consider them.

In the middle of their conversation, he forgot what, she slipped her spaghetti strap from her shoulder, showing him a scar. She wasn't wearing a bra, he realized suddenly. Nothing but the sheer cotton separated him and the creamy skin of her shoulder. He looked away quickly, the urge to taste her shoulder, tear her shirt off and touch her everywhere he could reach too much for him to hide.

"It's getting late. We should head downstairs."

Clary's smile fell and she looked down at the ground. She nodded, picking up a stray twig from between the stones and running her fingers along it to strip it of the tiny, budding leaves. Neither of them made to get up.

"Have you and Isabelle ever… dated?" She asked suddenly.

Jace thought he might have misheard. _What were we talking about? Something about turtles and tattoos? Wait, that can't be right. _ Jace couldn't really listen through the raging blood pumping in his ears.

"Isabelle?"

"Simon was wondering." Clary clarified quickly.

"Maybe he should ask her." Jace bristled at the mention of the Mundane boy. _Let him wonder what he has to compete_ _with_, Jace thought with grim satisfaction. He also didn't want to talk about other girls in front of her. It was pointless; no other girl, past or present, mattered to him the way she did.

"I'm not sure he wants to. Anyway, never mind. It's none of my business." She looked put out by his noncommittal answer. Her reaction made Jace inexplicably happy, and he did something he didn't usually do. He elaborated.

"The answer is no. There may have been a time when one or the other of us considered it, but she's like a sister to me. It would be strange."

Clary seemed relieved. He liked that she seemed relieved, but he shouldn't. He shouldn't let his heart race at wondering why that information might relieve her.

"So you and Isabelle never-"

"Never."

Clary swallowed hard and looked him straight in the eye. A little smile slipped through_._

"She hates me." Clary laughed uncomfortably.

"No, she doesn't. You just make her nervous because she's always been the only girl in a crowd of adoring boys and now she isn't anymore."

"But she's so beautiful."

"So are you, and very different from how she is, and she can't help but notice that. She's always wanted to be small and delicate, you know. She hates being taller than most boys."

Clary was frozen at that, for some reason. She was staring at him with a far-off, funny look. Jace's heart thumped loudly.

"We should go downstairs." He repeated, trying to convince himself of that idea. He wasn't going to tell her how he felt. He wasn't.

She should really stop looking at him like she wanted him to.

"All right." The words were faint, unconvincing. She licked her lips, her eyes drifting to his lips before hurriedly focusing on a plant behind him. Jace stilled at that.

Clary stood, not noticing what was surely a longing look on his face, and started to walk towards the door to the greenhouse exit.

Jace almost sighed, but he stopped it, telling himself that he was happy things would end there, that the night was over. He'd gotten through it without revealing his feelings to her.

Then she twisted, as if out of surprise, and their bodies connected. He put a hand out to steady her, she grabbed at his shirt, and passion flamed.

He wasn't sure who kissed whom first, whose eyes blazed with desire first, but her lips were on his and it was as though a thousand stars exploded behind his closed eyes.

Jace thought about pulling back, denying it, letting it rest for a while. _This is the wrong moment for this, the wrong situation_. With her mother missing, and the weight of discovering her shadowhunter heritage, Jace doubted she could consider what he wanted from her with the weight he felt it deserved.

_I'm definitely in love with her, _Jace knew with sudden clarity. He felt as though she'd slid under his skin and warmed him from the inside out. A sudden calm settled through him. He was content, peaceful, for once in his chaotic life. He didn't want anything else in that moment than to never stop kissing her, never disentangle her body from his.

_Please let this never stop. _

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. The warmth in his core grew. Her hands twisted in his hair, her soft chest pressed against his. Jace was thawing from the inside out, and it was all her doing.

Then that damn bird.

It came so close to Jace's head that it nearly clipped him with its wings. Jace cried out, drawing away, and the moment was broken.

"Don't panic, but we've got an audience." He said, disappointed but unable to fully let the moment pass. He didn't want to let her go. He wouldn't let her go, not after that.

"If he's here Hodge won't be far behind." _What the hell am I saying? _ "We should go." Jace wanted to take back the words as soon as they left his lips, but he knew he was right.

"Is he spying on you?" Clary hissed. "Hodge, I mean."

"No, he just likes to come up here to think. Too bad—we were having such a scintillating conversation."

Clary stepped back, and Jace let her go with more than a little reluctance. Her hand slipped into his, though, and he held it firmly.

They escaped down the stairway with Hugo's eyes on their back, falling into silence. Clary would glance at him from time to time as though she wanted to say something, or maybe she wanted him to say something. Jace didn't know what to say. He'd already gone too far, kissing her like that. Now he wanted to say a million things to her, and every single one of them was too selfish to let past his lips.

"Thanks for the birthday picnic." Clary leaned up against the wall by her door. Jace couldn't bring himself to let her hand go and watch her walk into her room.

"Are you going to sleep?" He asked, looking at their intertwined fingers. It was like some miracle, the way they fit in one another. The warmth in his heart faltered and sputtered like a weak flame as he realized she was leaving him.

"Aren't you tired?" Clary asked.

"I've never been more awake." Jace said. His voice came out much more earnest than he had intended. He didn't seem to have control over himself around her.

Clary's gaze darted between his eyes, trying to read him. She was as unreadable to him as he suspected he was to her.

"Jace." Clary said suddenly, alarm sparking in her. "Simon's in my room."

Her words were like a knife in his exposed heart. Jace took a step back, her hand falling from his, and, though he tried to stop it, he felt his expression cooling into a flat mask. The mundane, who was so obviously in love with her too, was in her room at this time of night? Waiting for her?

Simon chose that moment to step out into the hall.

* * *

"Hey." Simon's eyes flashed between the two of them. "What are you two doing? In the dark? Together?" His hair was messy and he was squinting without his glasses. It was clear that he'd been sleeping in her bed.

Clary glanced at Jace. His face was a hard, unreadable neutral, but there was something flinty in the way he looked at Simon. Clary's stomach dropped and she felt a bit sick.

"He was wishing me happy birthday." Clary said softly. Her voice stuck in her dry throat.

"Looks like you need to get a Mundane calendar, Wayland. It's not 'til tomorrow. Points for effort, though." Simon seemed a little too smug in pointing this out.

"What a terrible misunderstanding. I'll be sure to say it exactly on time next time." Jace looked haughty and bored. Clary wondered what had happened to the gentle boy she'd seen mere seconds ago. He was back to the sarcastic warrior now—untouchable. "We've tolerated your mundane inside the Institute, Clary, a huge violation of our rules, but we really have to draw the line at housing him. This is a sanctuary for shadowhunters, not scruffy, unwashed lovers. Have him out by the morning." Jace's lip curled up in an insulting indication of disgust as he stared at Simon. Simon's cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment. Jace cast her an iron look of contempt and turned to walk briskly down the hall and out of sight.

Clary was frozen in place, watching him go with her mouth wide open.

"What did he mean by 'unwashed'?" Simon was outraged. "I smell like roses."  
Simon's words knocked her from her stupor. Clary blinked at him.

"Geez, I wonder what it would take to earn an invite to this exclusive shadowhunter club. Maybe I could convince a warlock to spell me into shitting gold? Do you think that would do it?" Simon muttered. "Clary, aren't you going to sleep?"

"I have to—we were talking, and—I have to say something." Clary stumbled over her words, her feet moving before her brain knew what she was doing. She hurried down the hall, breaking out into a jog.

She stopped in front of his door, still not entirely sure what she was doing or what she would say. She knocked anyway, her heart racing.


	5. Decisions

It took a while for him to answer, longer than she knew it should have.

He cracked the door, blocking the entry with his body. He leaned against the doorframe, looking down at her coolly.

"Simon isn't my lover." Clary said the first words that popped into her head. A flicker of surprise registered in his impassive stare.

"Arguing over semantics? What would you call someone that sleeps in your bed? Boyfriend? Squeeze? Sweetheart? Or was it just a fling, maybe?" Jace asked, a glint of malice in his tight smile.

"We've been friends since we were practically in diapers. It doesn't mean anything."

"You have the most peculiar attitude towards sex I've ever witnessed." He was looking at her like an interesting bug he'd like nothing more than to squish. "First you try to lose your virginity to a stranger in a club, and now, merely months later, you're telling me that sleeping with your oldest friend is 'nothing' simply because he's an old friend. Growing up in the Mundane world must really be different."

Clary started to protest, but he raised his voice over her.

"I'm tired, Clary." He went to shut the door, but Clary threw her body against it.

"Will you listen to me?" She shouted, frustration fueling her volume. Jace's mouth set in a grim line and his stare was menacing. "I'm _not_ having sex with Simon."

Jace was silent. His expression didn't change much.

"We were talking and he fell asleep in my bed." Clary continued, watching him closely. Why did he still look so pissed?

"Nothing happened between us. Nothing ever has." She restated.

"Alright, nothing happened between you." Jace acquiesced with rigid formality.

"Then why are you so mad still?" Clary let a heavy breath of frustration go.

"I'm not mad." Jace replied icily. "I'm tired, I'd like to go to bed."

"I thought you said you'd 'never been more awake'?" Clary threw his own words back at him. Jace's eyes flashed and he took a step towards her, causing Clary to back up to keep the distance between them, chasing her from the doorframe. "That was before a particularly nasty shock drained the energy right out of me."

"Well I'm still awake." Clary yelled, though the content of her speech hardly warranted it. She couldn't let him go back into his room with that look on his face, though, and the best way to prevent that was to pick a fight with him. Over nothing, really.

"Great. Have another long talk with _Simon_ until his flat jokes tire you out." Jace said 'Simon' in a way that would be more appropriate for 'Satan' or 'Hitler'.

"I don't want to talk to Simon, I want to talk to _you_!" Clary yelled, a furious blush starting on her face. "I want to go in _your_ room, with _you_, and talk to _you_, even though _you_ are being a _complete ass_ right now!"

Jace swallowed, staring at her with a mixture of irritation and something else. Clary held his gaze, her cheeks burning up.

"And maybe fall asleep on _your_ bed when I do get tired." The words were small and quiet, in sharp contrast with her yelling. Their effect on Jace was profound. His expression softened completely, his hands, which were tensed into a rigid grip on the door and doorframe, fell to his sides, and he looked away from her as though she'd worn something shiny that reflected light into his eyes.

He retreated into his room, leaving the door open for Clary. Clary, a little stunned that he would give in so easily, wandered in in a daze. It was monk-like in its cleanliness, with no reference to friends or family in photo or otherwise. It looked like any other room in the Institute. That bothered Clary. It was like he didn't want to make a dent in the world, like he always expected to suddenly disappear from it and didn't want to cause anyone trouble with cleaning up his personal belongings.

He stayed near the door, eyeing her as she looked around.

"So why are you angry at me this time?" She asked. She sat down at the edge of his perfectly made bed.

"This time?" He arched a brow.

"Yeah— last time you got this angry at me because I didn't tell you I was a virgin."  
"Oh."

Clary snorted from the irony.

"I guess you're angry now because I'm still a virgin."

"You are?" Jace asked, surprised.

"Well I'm not sleeping with Simon. Whom else would I sleep with?"

"I don't know, Clary, I haven't seen you in months."

"You really were an exception, you know." She said softly.

Jace looked away from her again.

"I honestly don't care what you are. You could have slept with an entire army in the last few months and I would still feel the same. Simon just surprised me. It's difficult to feel fine immediately after that just because you explained the situation."

_I would still feel the same. _

Jace leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.

"How do you feel?" Clary tried to say, but it came out a wistful whisper. Electricity started in her fingers, spreading down to her stomach when he met her eyes with his golden ones. He didn't say anything for a long time, and Clary waited with a tension inside of her that she couldn't explain. Then he drew a breath, and though he seemed to be reconsidering before he finally decided, he said clearly and steadily,

"I love you, Clary."

His words passed through her like a warm breeze, rocking her to her very core. Clary had trouble drawing a steady breath.

"I love you, too."

Jace pushed off from the wall, and much to her surprise, anger started in his eyes again.

"No you don't."

Clary's mouth dropped.

"Yes I do! What's wrong with you? What gives you the right to tell me what I feel?"

"You haven't had time to think about it, not like I have. You've had a million other things to think about, but all I've had to think about was you. You don't have to say it back just because you feel like you should. I know you like me, I can tell that much. But I _love_ you, Clary."

Clary stood from the bed, trying to match his height advantage as he looked down his nose at her. Her attempt failed miserably.

"Love isn't something you think about, it's something you feel. I worry about you. When you're in pain, I feel it as my own. When you smile… I feel your happiness. I love you, Jace. I've never been more certain of anything." Clary argued. She wished she wasn't arguing. Her heart had flip flopped, her stomach turned over, and she felt like she was floating again. He seemed to do that to her a lot. "I'm sure you know from how I look at you."

She took a step closer, and when he didn't back away from her, she took another step. Jace watched with wary eyes as she put a hand on his cheek, then on his chest. The hostility broke in him when she touched him, his rigid posture relaxing, his eyes searching hers as they had in the greenhouse. With her heart beating like a hummingbird, she stood on tiptoes and kissed him.

This kiss was different than their kiss in the greenhouse. It started out slow, delicate, soothing. _I love you, _she thought over and over again, _I love you. _She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, threading her fingers through his soft hair. He drew her closer, his arms around her, and his tongue asked for entry to her mouth. Jace tasted like sweet apples, and kissing him was like drinking sunlight. She pressed herself into him, wanting to eliminate any space between them. His lips moved from her mouth to her neck, his hands holding her lightly to his body.

Clary wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

"Clary." He whispered in her ear, his hands roaming along her body. Clary had to reach, had to go up as far as she could on her toes, but she made it to his ear, drawing the lobe into her mouth and biting gently. Jace drew back, looking at her with strange combination of surprise and arousal, before kissing her hard. Clary stumbled back, feeling behind her for the bed, and sank down into it, pulling Jace with her.

Jace broke their kiss as they fell. He leaned back on his elbows, resting above her, silent. Clary looked between his golden eyes, a little dazed by how beautiful he was to her. Unable to withstand the distance between them, she pulled him down to kiss her again. Jace responded hungrily. Clary whimpered into his mouth as he gently massaged her breast, and Jace reacted violently to the noise, moaning back and threading his knee between her legs to push against her sex. Clary gasped against his mouth, surprised at how arousing the pressure from his knee was, and Jace devoured her gasp.

"Jace."

"Hmmm?" He asked, nuzzling her neck.

She rubbed herself against him, timidly, experimentally. A jolt of pleasure ran through her. Jace, kissing her neck now, smiled against her skin. He moved up, running his thigh along her sex, and another spike of pleasure shot through her.

"Do you want to?" She asked, breathless.

Jace drew back barely, searching her eyes. He stroked her exposed stomach absentmindedly as he considered her question. Her shirt had ridden up (or had it been pulled up?) to the bottom of her breasts.

"Do you want to?" He asked, his voice a little shaky.

"I- don't know. I think so."

Jace chuckled at her response.

"It's not something you think about. It's something you feel." He said, a slight edge of teasing in his words.

Clary narrowed her eyes at him, her earlier words thrown back at her.

"This isn't the same."

Jace rolled off of her, and his head fall back on the bed. He let a long breath go. It wasn't a sigh of frustration, exactly. Clary couldn't tell what it was.

"That's ok. Don't worry about it. I'll just hop in the shower and cool down." He started to sit up. Clary, completely confused, grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt to stop him.

"Wait. I just- I wasn't sure if you were going to run off again."

"What do you mean?" He glanced from her hand to her before sinking back onto the bed. He wouldn't look her in the eyes.

"Before- you remember." Clary's cheeks burned just thinking of their last sexual encounter. "At the hotel."

"Oh." Neither of them spoke, both reluctant to bring up memories of that night, until, "What do you mean?" Jace repeated, laughing a little.

"Well, you aren't going to get freaked out?" This was going nowhere, but she couldn't say it, couldn't say exactly what she meant because then he might reject her again and she couldn't bear it if he did.

Jace turned to look at her finally, his expression soft.

"Why would I do that?" He said, his voice as gentle as his eyes. The light of the room was too bright, too fluorescent for this conversation. Clary wanted to hide in the dark.

"Nothing's changed. I'm still-"

"Clary, you've completely misunderstood me. Being a virgin is nothing to feel ashamed over. I wasn't angry because of what you were, I was angry-"

"I know, you were angry because I didn't tell you. _Whatever_." Clary rubbed her eyes, wanting to hide from him as she said this. "I know what you meant."

"Do you?" Jace's tone was dry. He was laughing at her.

"Hey." She sat up, glaring down at him as she wrapped her arms around her bent legs. "Stop that."

"Stop being so immature, then." Jace continued to laugh at her. "Just tell me what you want, Clary. Tell me straight."

"Are you freaked out that I'm a virgin? You didn't answer me when I asked you if you wanted to." The words rushed out. She ducked her head down between her arms to hide her red face.

"I thought it was clear by what we were doing-" Jace pulled her down onto her back and rolled over on top of her, surprising Clary. He pinned her hands to the bed with his and kissed her roughly. "what I want."

"You made it sound like the first time is always horrible, no matter who it's with. For both people." Clary said, a tremble in her voice. His weight over her was so warm and comforting. She thought it might feel like being crushed, to lie with another person like this, but Jace carefully shifted most of his weight onto his knees. It felt more like he was protecting her with his body.

Jace brushed another kiss against her mouth.

"It's going to hurt, I can almost guarantee you that from your reaction last time. I don't like to see you in pain, so it won't be pleasant for me either." Jace nodded, his expression calm. He wouldn't sugar coat it, Clary knew that when she asked him. _Don't ask Jace anything you don't want to hear the answer to_, Isabelle had warned her already. Fear twisted her stomach as she remembered the sharp pain between her legs, the surprise and terror in Jace's expression.

"Can you be more comforting?" Clary asked, trying to hide her sudden, dizzying fear under a layer of irritation. He smiled.

"It will be different this time. I wasn't in love with you then; I am now. It won't hurt any less, but I promise it will be better." Jace brushed another sweet kiss over her lips. Clary's heart was beating fast now, half from fear and half from arousal. "I can try to break it quick, so you won't be in pain the whole time. But that's something I can't promise will happen. We can stop whenever you want if it's too much."

"But if we stop, it will just hurt next time." Clary said, her voice shaking now. Jace's expression shifted from calm to concerned.  
"This shouldn't be a cause for anxiety, Clary. Let's just forget about it and go to sleep. I really liked that idea, sleeping here with you. That's enough for me tonight, more than enough."

Clary grabbed him again before he could push off of her.

"Wait. But… I want to."

Jace kissed her again, another soft peck on her lips that sent warmth radiating through her.

"You're a strange girl, Clarissa Fray. Your hands are shaking, just like they were that night." Jace pulled her hand between them, tracing her fingers with his before interlacing their fingers and stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. He was so gentle with her, Clary could almost forget how fierce he was in battle.

"I'm afraid, but I want to." Clary repeated, and this time her voice shook a little less.

Jace pressed into her with another heated, intense, evaluating stare. Clary waited for his decision, watched him turn over the possibilities in his mind.

* * *

_Sorry about the short chapters. I cut chapters off where it feels natural, and those points have just been coming earlier than usual- perfect, if evil, cliffhangers. Thank you for the reviews! Question for you wonderful readers: do you think they are moving too fast? Would you like to see more romance before they get physical? I was thinking of drawing it out longer, but I'm not sure. At this point I could go either way. I would like to hear what you guys think. _


	6. Blood

Clary didn't let Jace finish fishing through his doubts. She leaned in and kissed him, hard and sure, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him down to her. Jace, a little caught off guard, crashed into her, his chest against hers, his breath on her cheek. Clary tried to put every ounce of the desire she felt into that kiss. He said he wanted it to… she wasn't going to be shy, then.

Jace chuckled against her mouth, surprised by her sudden zeal. Clary snaked her legs around his hips and Jace drew a quick breath, breaking the kiss as she pressed herself against him. She quickly pulled him back down against her lips, sliding her hands under his shirt and feeling the hard muscle there. Jace shivered as she ran her fingers up further, touching the hard lines of his chest and upper abdomen. Jace let a shaky breath go, hanging his head and closing his eyes to feeling. Clary wasted no time in pulling his shirt up, and Jace shifted so she could tug it over his shoulders.

It certainly wasn't the same as last time. She felt different. He felt different. She remembered him as cool, collected, arrogant, and confident in this situation. The Jace in front of her was hardly cool- at first he seemed more affected by her then she was by him. He couldn't undo his jeans, so Clary had to help him. But then he started to touch her, really touch her, and Clary was the one who lost control.

"Slow down, Clary." Jace stopped her as she reached for his underwear. Clary swallowed hard and nodded, confused. Jace pulled her arms above her head and trailed his hands down the sensitive underside. Clary felt his touch in her stomach, a squirming sensation of wonderful, pleasant butterflies. He continued touching down her sides, all the while drawing at her nipple with his mouth, kissing her chest and breast. He appreciated every aspect of her breasts, squeezing lightly, biting and licking and kissing until Clary was dizzy with a hot fever of longing, the room upended and spinning. Clary wanted to return the favor.

Timidly, she reached between them, brushing the top of his boxers and feeling his hardness through the fabric. Jace's eyes clouded over and he shifted so she had a better angle. Clary took a deep breath, nerves flooding her, and slipped her hand under the waistband.

It was warm and hard and smooth, unlike anything Clary had felt before. She wasn't sure if she was doing it right, but Jace seemed to enjoy the mere fact that she was touching him. He closed his eyes and nodded for her to continue. Clary wrapped her hand around him and tried moving up and down. Jace winced.

"Sorry!" Clary whispered.

"Like this." He put his hand around hers and realigned her grip. Jace moved her hand, his fingers over hers, and shuddered.

"That's it."

His hand fell away and Clary continued, trying to do exactly as he had showed her, lost in the expression on his face. His breathing deepened and his lips parted. Then he opened his eyes and looked into hers, and she couldn't stand the distance between them any longer and neither could he.

They crashed into each other. He rolled over onto her, nestling his hips between her legs, and Clary wrapped her legs around him, pushing him into her sex, wanting more than anything to remove any tiny space between them.

Jace pushed her underwear down suddenly, gripping her ass and kneading it.

Clary couldn't help her sounds, but Jace responded hungrily to them. Urged on by her moans, he shifted her thigh higher up on his hips and stroked his finger along her slit. Then, accompanying a particularly feverish kiss, he slid his finger inside her.

"Aaaah!" She cried out in surprise. Jace leaned back, watching her intently. Clary tightened her legs, her first instinct to pull away from the alien sensation, but Jace's hips kept her legs spread wide. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't something Clary had an adjective to describe.

"Relax." He kissed her again, brushing hair away from her forehead with his other hand.

"It feels… strange." Clary whispered. Jace smiled, a brief but brilliant flash of sunlight.

"Bad strange?" He was slowly pumping his finger in and out. Clary could barely respond.

"Good, I think."

"How does this feel?" She felt his thumb on her, a different part of her, and a tremor of distinct pleasure flooded through her. Clary moaned again and the corners of Jace's lips turned up in a confident grin.

"You're wet, baby." He pressed a kiss to her neck. "Are you ready?"

Her stomach twisted and Clary felt nauseous with the sudden fear, but she tried not to show it. She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

"Do you want it a certain way? A certain position?"

"I don't know any positions." Clary shook her head. He was still moving his finger and in out of her. It was starting to feel better. "But this is good."

Jace pushed his underwear down, kicking it off once he had passed the point he could reach, unwilling to move too far from her body. He reached beside her to his bedside table and rifled around in the drawer, withdrawing a condom after a few seconds. Clary's heart pounded in her ear as he showed her how to put it on. She felt the need to look away as he did, a leftover polite reflex to seeing male genitalia.

"Make sure you pinch the top." He instructed her, his hands over hers as she smoothed the latex down.

"Ok." Clary nodded as though she were listening closely, but her brain was a feverish jumble of panic and anxiety and excitement.

Then he kissed her deeply, laying her back down against the bed, and reached between them. She felt him position himself against her. She closed her eyes.

He didn't give her any warning. She felt him at her entrance, and she was just about to ask something, some nervous nonsense question, when he pushed in, hard and fast.

Clary yelled, tears springing to her eyes. It was _agony. _Pain throbbed inside her; she tried to push him off of her, it was so intense. She was immediately angry at him for surprising her, and she was about to yell at him when Jace started peppering her cheek with kisses and smoothing her hair away from her face. Clary's anger died, replaced with a warm feeling of love. She went limp.

Tears ran down her face from the still throbbing pain, and Jace wiped them away and kissed their trails. Jace didn't move other than caressing and kissing her, giving her time to adjust to the initial pain. The undercurrent of pain and the comfort of Jace's caresses mixed into a bittersweet emotion that calmed Clary and gave her strength to continue.

Then, when the pain had died down to a dull throb, Jace pulled out of her. The moment he started to move again, the pain spiked. Clary clenched her teeth and tried to hold back her groan. Jace held her tightly, whispering encouragement in her ear and kissing her cheek tenderly. He didn't stop this time. When he had nearly pulled all the way out of her, he pushed back in, the start of a slow, steady pace. Clary bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, clutching Jace's strong back and shoulders, waiting for the pain to subside. It did, but slowly.

Jace didn't say anything, but she could feel his eyes on her and his concern as he pulled her ever closer and soothed her.

"Better?" He asked as she felt her expression start to relax.

"Yes, keep going." Clary sighed, hugging him tightly and trying to ignore the stinging between her legs. She was starting to feel past the pain to the pressure of him inside of her, the heat of him. She liked that part.

Warmth grew between her legs, tingling warmth that spread farther up her body with every stroke. It was connected like a wave to the friction between their bodies, lapping at her stomach with his entrance and receding at his departure.

Clary wrapped her arms around him tighter, pressed her face to his shoulder, and rode out the waves. Jace turned his head and started to kiss her lips, passionate, intense kisses that coincided with his steady strokes. He ran his hand along her thigh, hiking her leg up further, spreading her to him more. Clary pressed up, trying to meet his thrusts with her own. Jace smiled and picked up his pace. Clary realized how rigid and stiff she had been as the pain sank through her and how relieved Jace looked to see her pliant.

Clary moaned as a particularly intense tremor of pleasure passed through her.

"Jace-"

"Hmmm?" Jace grunted as he grabbed her ass and pulled her tight against him. Clary's head fell back and a moan escaped her. The way he handled her was the perfect combination of firm and gentle.

"It feels good now." She sighed.

"I see that." He pressed her into the bed with a kiss. He paused, leaning down to touch and kiss her breast, squeezing her ass with one hand. Clary panted hard in the sudden stillness, focused on the unfamiliar feel of him inside her. She felt like Jace had set a fire in her stomach; a hot, intense fire of desire and comfort.

"Do you want to try something different?" He asked, his tawny eyes hooded and unfocused. The love and concern there brought a stupid grin to her face.

"Ok."

Jace withdrew from her, and Clary mourned the loss of him. She felt empty. He rolled onto his back and gestured for her to follow.

Clary sat up, uncertain, and took in his new position. Jace grinned and crossed his arms behind his head, waiting.

Clary realized what he wanted her to do, and though she felt a bit exposed, she sat over him and straddled his hips without hesitation. Jace's teasing expression changed to unconcealed desire as she slipped him inside, her eyelids fluttering closed at the full feeling. She rested her hands against his chest and pushed up.

Jace curled his hands around her hips, guiding her. Clary rocked her hips for him, closing her eyes and focusing on the heat building between her legs. She rubbed her clit against him on the down stroke, and the tingling built with each push off. She had control in this position, and she could do what felt good to her. The tingling built up faster until she was shuddering with the intensity of it.

"There you go, Clary. That's it." Jace sat up, grabbing her thighs and pulling her body close as he continued her rhythm with his own thrusts. Clary wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder as he fucked her, lost in the incredible feelings.

Then Jace laid her down against the bed, her head at the foot of it, and kissed down her neck, across her chest, down to her stomach.

"What- what are you doing?" Clary asked, butterflies back in her stomach.

"Mmmmh, you'll like it." Jace promised, winking at her before kissing her hip bone and releasing a shiver and a moan in her. Clary sat up.

"Wait." She insisted, her voice shaking.

Jace sat up too, leaning in to slay her with a sweet kiss. Clary moaned, helpless to him.

"Lie down, baby." He said softly, his golden eyes persuading her.

Clary bit her lip, but she did as he said. She was possibly more nervous than she had been when they started, but the tingling sensation had turned into a persistent tremor that urged her to do whatever she could to push it over the brink, so she couldn't bring herself to deny his assistance.

It was almost as big of a shock as when he slipped his finger inside. His tongue was wet and strong, and it left no part of her untouched.

The tremors grew and grew as Jace worked a finger into her. He licked over her clit and along her folds until Clary was screaming, crying out as she fell over the brink. It was then that Jace entered her again, pumping into her with each rolling wave of pleasure and filling her completely. He kissed her, and she tasted herself on him, and she didn't care, couldn't think of anything but Jace as they spiraled up into bliss and Jace cried out into her mouth with his own orgasm. He shuddered and collapsed against her, and they were a sweaty, hot mess of intertwined bodies.

After a few moments he lifted himself up weakly, a small smile on his face.

"I love you." Jace whispered, pushing her hair away from her sweaty forehead.

"I love you too." She replied, drawing him down to kiss her.

Jace rested above her for a few more moments, and Clary thought she might fall asleep to the rhythm of his breathing. Then he rolled off of her and reached down to pull the condom off.

"Oh my god." Clary muttered as she saw the bloody mess on the condom.

"I'm going to have to get new sheets." Jace laughed as he tied the end and dropped it in a wastebasket by his bedside table, inspecting the blood stains beneath them. Clary rolled off of the stains, bewildered. She knew she would bleed, but she had no idea she would bleed this much.

"I'm sorry I ruined your sheets."

"I'm not." He whispered, touching her cheek. He kissed her before moving to stand up.

"Where are you going?"

Jace lifted his hand and two fingers were covered in blood stains.

"I told you you'd like it."

Clary blushed. She lay back down and stared at the ceiling as the sound of running water drifted from the bathroom. Then Jace returned to her, pulling the covers up over both of them as he slid in next to her.

"I'm glad I won't have to hurt you anymore." Jace sighed.

"Even so, that was pretty amazing… hey, you lied to me! You made me think it would be horrible!" Clary grinned, turning on her side and pressing her naked body against his. He rested an arm over her waist and propped his head up with his other hand.

"Always under promise and over deliver." Jace preached, his gold eyes sparkling. "The first few minutes were pretty horrible for you, though. I could tell." He looked more serious.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll never understand why Mundanes apologize for things that aren't their fault." Jace frowned.

"It's just... I know it wasn't very good at first." Clary knew she had no control over it, but she still felt guilty.

"Clary, that was the best I've ever had."

Clary couldn't help the giant smile that erupted on her face.

"Really?"

"I've never had sex with someone I cared about." Jace said quietly.

"That was the best I've ever had too." She giggled. Jace rolled his eyes and pulled her into his chest, their bodies pressed tightly together from shoulder to foot.

"Best so far. From now on, it's going to be all the time. 24/7. Wherever, whenever. On the top of a mountain, on the bathroom sink, the kitchen table- everywhere. All the time."

"You better be kidding." Clary laughed and tried to pull away. Jace held her tighter.

"I love you, Clary. I love you." He whispered in her ear. Clary's face warmed and she stopped fighting. She relaxed into his arms, blissfully happy, until sleep overtook her.

* * *

_Wow, that took me forever to write. I don't know why it was so hard, I've been in a porn writing mood for such a long time. I think it's because I had to put my mind back to my first time, and I was so nervous I barely remember anything specific. I remember being nervous, afraid, sick to my stomach... and then at the end, very happy. So basically everything I wrote was loosely autobiographical (lol TMI, Reilly (geeeett iiiiitt?)). Alot of my stories are autobiographical because I like to write really visceral imagery and I can't do that well without experience in the situation. I got nine 'yes' and only one 'no' when I asked if readers thought Clace was ready for the next step, so... one thing everyone agreed with, which I agree with, is that the romance has to stay strong afterwards, so I'll keep that in mind as a priority. Thanks for reading, and please review! _


	7. Break my Heart

Clary woke up to the sound of someone knocking loudly on the door.

Clary was disoriented at first, but then a fuzzy hot feeling started in her chest as she realized she was staring into Jace's amber colored eyes. A grin flew onto her face before the knocking at the door resumed. Jace returned her smile, kissing her lips. She shivered.

"Wayland! Wake up! Open the door!" The pounding resumed.

_Simon._

Clary jolted at the realization and immediately began to scramble for her clothes. Irritation clouded Jace's eyes. He stood up quickly from the bed and pulled on the jeans still lying on the floor from last night. He snatched his shirt and underwear from the ground as well, throwing them in a laundry basket in his closet before checking Clary's progress. Panic set in as Simon's incessant pounding resumed once more.

"Mundane, I will kill you if you keep that up, against the law or not." Jace growled.

"Open the door. Clary's missing and I need your help."

Jace watched as she pulled her underwear on and gathered the rest of her clothes from the floor. Clary shook her head violently, begging Jace not to open the door.

"Hold on, I'm getting dressed." Jace replied, his voice softer. He looked slightly irked by her embarrassment.

"I don't care if you're wearing nothing but rubber ducky print underwear just open this door, I need to talk to you. Didn't you hear what I said? Clary's _missing_! She never came back to her room last night!"

Jace rolled his eyes and glared at the door. Clary ran into the bathroom, jeans and shirt hand, dressed only in her underwear, and closed the door behind her.

"She's not missing, Mundane." She heard Jace crack the door.

"What do you mean? Where is she?" Simon's voice was slightly less frantic.

"She's here, with me. She's in the bathroom getting dressed. And for the record, you've wrecked the romance and I will find a way to make you pay later. When you least expect it." Jace said, his voice perfectly calm. Clary closed her eyes as embarrassment and horror sank through her. _Damn it, Jace. Simon doesn't need to know that. _

In the deafening silence, Clary struggled to pull her jeans on.

"I don't believe you." Simon's voice was quiet, angry.

"Don't come in."  
Then there was the sound of movement, followed by grunting and Simon's distinct yelp of pain.

_Oh no. _

Clary threw her shirt on in record time and burst through the door. Jace had Simon's hand twisted behind his back and his face shoved into the bed. Simon was squealing with pain and Jace showed no empathy for him.

"Let him go!" Clary yelled, furious.

"I told him not to come in." Jace shrugged, releasing his wrist with more force than necessary and backing up off of Simon. Simon stood up and threw a nasty glare at Jace before looking at Clary. He took in what she was sure must be a very disheveled appearance.

When they were seven, Simon used to live in a little brownstone by the street. One day they were playing outside when his mother came home with groceries. Simon's cat at the time, Mr. Meow, raced through his mother's legs as she struggled with the groceries at the front door. Mr. Meow immediately ran out into the street, and Simon, alerted by his mother's cries, watched as an Audi mowed over the small animal. Clary had to hold him back to keep him from running out into traffic after the dying cat. She would never forget the look on his face as he screamed for his beloved animal.

Somehow, his expression now was worse. More subtle, but infinitely worse.

He looked away from her, and his eyes caught on something that made him still. Clary saw that the sheets on the bed were tangled, revealing the blood stains from the night before.

"Simon." She was incredibly confused. She could understand if Simon was grossed out. She could understand if he yelled at her for making him worry.

She couldn't understand the utter devastation in his eyes.

Clary quickly hurried over to the bed and pulled the sheets up to cover the blood stains mesmerizing Simon. All the color had drained from his face and his eyes were empty.

"Simon-"

"Don't, Clary. " His voice broke and Clary thought she saw tears gathering in his eyes.

Simon twisted and left the room without looking back.

"Simon!" Clary called.

"Let him go, Clary." Jace caught her arm.

"Let go of me!" Clary insisted, tugging her arm away. Jace held on.

"Clary, he's in love with you. I don't know how you were oblivious to it for so long, but he is. It might hurt now, but it's better for him in the long run. Just let him go."

"You don't know him the way I do. I have to go after him." Clary said, her voice firm, unwarranted anger at Jace spiking. Jace released her and Clary ran after Simon.

She caught up with him halfway down the hall.

"Simon, please wait."

"Don't talk to me, Clary. I mean it."

"Simon, why are you crying?" Clary asked, utterly bewildered.

_Clary, he's in love with you. I don't know how you were so oblivious to it for so long, but he is._

_No, that can't be true. No._

"Simon!"

Simon finally turned. Everything about him seemed fragile in that moment, even the way he moved.

"What?"

But Clary had nothing to say. She hadn't thought past getting his attention, and now that he turned his miserable eyes on her she was at a complete loss.

Simon shook his head, wiped the tears from his eyes and continued down the corridor. Clary followed, trying desperately to think of anything to say. He ducked into her room, and Clary felt a slight twinge of relief. Maybe it was a sign he would talk to her.

"What are you doing?" Clary asked as Simon started to throw his things into his backpack.

"I'm going home. I've been here too long, I think. Mundanes like me don't belong in a place like this."

"I'm sorry." Clary whispered, though she wasn't sure what for. She couldn't get that look on his face out of her head. She felt like she had stabbed him through the chest. "I know you don't like Jace."

Simon threw his coat back down on the bed. He took a shaky breath.

"No," Simon said, and this time when he turned his eyes on her they were hard, "I don't like flat soda. I don't like crappy boy band pop. I don't like being stuck in traffic. I don't like math homework. I _hate _Jace. See the difference?"

"He saved your life," Clary pointed out, reaching. Jace came along to protect her, she knew that now.

"Details," said Simon dismissively. "He's an asshole. I thought you were better than that." The bitterness almost hid the crack in his voice.

Clary's temper flared.

"Oh, and now you're pulling a high-and-mighty trip on me?" she snapped. "You're the one who was going to ask the girl with the most 'rockin' bod' to the Fall Fling." She mimicked Eric's lazy tone. Simon's mouth thinned out angrily. "So what if Jace is a jerk sometimes? You're not my brother, you're not my dad. You don't have to like him. I've never liked any of your girlfriends, but at least I've had the decency to keep it to myself."

"This," said Simon, between his teeth, "is different."

"How? How is it different?"

"Because I see the way you look at him!" he shouted, and his voice broke with pain. "And I never looked at any of those girls like that! It was just something to do, a way to practice, until—"

"Until what?" Clary knew dimly that she was being horrible, the whole thing was horrible; they'd never even had a fight before that was more serious than an argument about who'd eaten the last Pop-Tart from the box in the tree house, but she didn't seem able to stop. "Until Isabelle came along? I can't believe you're lecturing me about Jace when you made a complete fool of yourself over her!" Her voice rose to a scream.

"I was trying to make you jealous!" Simon screamed right back. His hands were fists at his sides. "You're so stupid, Clary. You're so stupid, can't you see anything?"

She stared at him in bewilderment. What on earth did he mean?

"Why would you try to do that?" She saw immediately that this was the worst thing she could have asked him. _No, that can't be it, no._

"Because," he said, so bitterly that it shocked her, "I've been in love with you for ten years, so I thought it seemed like time to find out whether you felt the same about me. Which, I guess, you don't."

He might as well have kicked her in the stomach. She couldn't speak; the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Hearing it, from his own mouth, she'd convinced herself it was some other reason, any other reason. She stared at him, trying to frame a response, any response. He cut her off sharply. "Don't. There's nothing you can say. You made a very clear choice. You couldn't have possibly made it any clearer."

She watched him walk to the door as if paralyzed; she couldn't move to hold him back, much as she wanted to. What could she say? "I love you, too"? But she didn't— did she? He paused at the door, hand on the knob, and turned to look at her. His eyes, behind the glasses, looked more tired than angry now.

"You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked. She shook her head. He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart."

* * *

Clary walked from her room in a daze. Jace had his arms crossed, leaning against the wall opposite her door.

"If looks could kill, he would have just stabbed me, ran me over, and set me on fire. All at once, if he could manage it." He mused. Clary still felt like she had been hit by a truck herself, so she couldn't even frame a response.

"Why did you tell him like that? If you knew he was in love with me, why did you tell him we slept together so casually?" She asked accusingly.

But she knew Jace. She wouldn't have expected anything different from him than blunt honesty.

She couldn't shake Simon's devastated eyes, though, and she wanted someone else to share the blame. She wanted to shift it off herself, just for a second.

"It's better for him to hear it now rather than later. I told him not to come in. He chose not to listen." Jace said simply, calmly. They both knew it was an obvious answer. Clary was too upset to care.

"He saw the blood. On the sheets."

"I know."

"I just broke his heart, Jace. Do you understand that? My best friend for all of my life? He might never speak to me again." Clary's voice rose from matching Jace's calm to a terrified cry.

Jace said nothing, and that made her panic more because that meant he thought it was a possibility. She'd lost her mother, Luke, and now very likely Simon. His expression pained as tears started gathering in her eyes. He pulled her into an embrace. Clary was mad at him for telling Simon the way he did, but she hated herself more. Far more. She buried her face in Jace's shirt and started to cry.


	8. Gone

Here's a reminder of what has happened and where we are in the story now:

_Jace was not with them. He was not with them because he was standing outside the infirmary, leaning against the wall, his bare, bloody hands curled at his sides. When Clary stopped in front of him, his lids flew open, and she saw that the pupils of his eyes were dilated, all the gold swallowed up in black. _

"_How is he?" she asked, as gently as she could. _

"_He's lost a lot of blood. Demon poisonings are common, but since it was a Greater Demon, Hodge isn't sure if the antidotes he usually employs will be viable." _

_She reached to touch his arm._

"_Jace—" _

_He flinched away. _

"_Don't." _

_She sucked in her breath. _

"_I never would have wanted anything to happen to Alec. I'm so sorry." He looked at her as if seeing her there for the first time. _

"_It's not your fault," he said. "It's mine." _

"_Yours? Jace, no it isn't—" _

"_Oh, but it is," he said, his voice as fragile as a sliver of ice. "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." _

"_What does that mean?" _

"_My fault," he said, "my own fault, my most grievous fault. It's Latin." He brushed a lock of her hair back from her forehead absently, as if unaware he was doing it. "Part of the Mass." _

"_I thought you didn't believe in religion." _

"_I may not believe in sin," he said, "but I do feel guilt. We Shadowhunters live by a code, and that code isn't flexible. Honor, fault, penance, those are real to us, and they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with who we are. This is who I am, Clary," he said desperately. "I am one of the Clave. It's in my blood and bones. So tell me, if you're so sure this wasn't my fault, why is it that the first thought in my mind when I saw Abbadon wasn't for my fellow warriors but for you?" His other hand came up; he was holding her face, prisoned between his palms. "I know— I knew— Alec wasn't acting like himself. I knew something was wrong. But all I could think about was you . . ." He bent his head forward, so their foreheads touched. She could feel his breath stir her eyelashes. She closed her eyes, letting the nearness of him wash over her like a tide. "If he dies, it will be like I killed him," he said. "I let my father die, and now I've killed the only brother I ever had." _

"_That's not true," she whispered. _

"_Yes, it is." They were close enough to kiss. And still he held her tightly, as if nothing could reassure him that she was real. "Clary," he said. "What's happening to me?"_

* * *

"_He's not your father!"_

_Jace looked as if she had slapped him._

"_Why are you so determined not to believe us?" _

"_Because she loves you," said Valentine. Clary felt the blood drain out of her face. She looked at him, not knowing what he might say next, but dreading it. She felt as if she were edging toward a precipice, some terrible hurtling fall into nothing and nowhere. Vertigo gripped her stomach. Valentine was looking at Clary with amusement, as if he could tell he had her pinned there like a butterfly to a board. "She fears I am taking advantage of you," he said. "That I have brainwashed you. It isn't so, of course. If you looked into your own memories, Clary, you would know it." _

"_Clary." Jace started to get to his feet, his eyes on her. She could see _ _the circles beneath them, the strain he was under. "I—"_

"_Sit down," said Valentine. "Let her come to it on her own, Jonathan." Jace subsided instantly, sinking back into the chair. Through the dizziness of vertigo, Clary groped for understanding. Jonathan?_

"_I thought your name was Jace," she said. "Did you lie about that, too?"_

"_No. Jace is a nickname." She was very near to the precipice now, so close she could almost look down. "For what?" He looked at her as if he couldn't understand why she was making so much of something so small. "It's my initials," he said. "J. C."_

_The precipice opened before her. She could see the long fall into darkness. "Jonathan," she said faintly. "Jonathan Christopher." _

_Jace's eyebrows drew together. "How did you—?" _

_Valentine cut in. His voice was soothing. "Jace, I had thought to spare you. I thought a story of a mother who died would hurt you less than the story of a mother who abandoned you before your first birthday."_

_Jace's slim fingers tightened convulsively around the glass's stem. Clary thought for a moment that it might shatter. _

"_My mother is alive?" _

"_She is," said Valentine. "Alive, and asleep in one of the downstairs rooms at this very moment. Yes," he said, cutting off Jace before he could speak, "Jocelyn is your mother, Jonathan. And Clary— Clary is your sister."_

* * *

The moment they returned to the institute, Clary threw up in the bathroom, checked on Alec, and then came, alone, to sit in her room in the darkness. She clutched at her sketchbook, a pencil in one hand. Normally when she was upset she would draw to distract herself.

She had never been this upset before, though. She couldn't move. She just clutched and unclutched her hand around her pencil, staring at the wall, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Luke would be by to pick her up soon. She had to get out of there, away from _him_. She saw his face as he stood over the broken shards of the portal and she had to hold him with all her strength. But then she felt him whisper her name brokenly into her hair over and over again, and something snapped. The adrenaline had protected her from feeling it, believing it was real.

She had nothing to protect her now.

_I slept with my own brother. _

_I fell in love… with my brother. _

Something so incredibly perfect, that felt so deeply, intensely right, was now dirty. She would never be able to scrub off what they had done, no matter how many showers she stood through. How twisted and cruel the world was that it could turn her pure, beautiful feelings into something that made her stomach turn until she threw up everything in it.

_I will never touch him like that again. I will never hold him. _

The worst part was how badly she wanted to, how unsure she was that she could keep that promise to her self.

Her fist clenched around the pencil, then unclenched.

She tried not to break, tried to take deep calming breaths. She pushed it to the deepest recess of her mind, buried it under whatever she could.

She made herself breathe.

Footsteps in the hall.

"Clary."

Simon stood in the doorway, his body tensed, his wide eyes set with fear and worry so intense Clary braced herself for what might come out of his mouth next.

_Oh god, he knows. _Simon was probably the only one who knew, beside herself and….

Anything he said now couldn't possibly be worse than what echoed in her head in low, persistent whispers.

"Simon." She choked on his name. She hadn't cried, not yet. It didn't feel real until she saw his eyes and realized that he knew; this wasn't all some horrible nightmare because Simon had never looked at her like that in her life and he never would even in her dreams.

Then Simon was holding her, his warmth against her shoulder, squeezing her tightly in his arms. He kissed the side of her head, his breath hot on her ear, "I'm so sorry, Clary. I'm so sorry this happened."

A wail broke free from Clary's throat, a sound she didn't know she could make- so broken and raw, the cry a dying creature. Some part of her was dying, she could feel that part withering in on itself and greying.

Simon held her tighter. She wept and clutched at him, her hands balling up his dark t-shirt and wrinkling it, probably beyond repair. She held onto him for dear life, because if she let go she would fall and never stop falling into the hole that opened up inside her.

"Clary, Clary I'm so sorry. Luke told me. He told me everything."

"Stop." She gasped. "Stop, don't say it."

"It's ok." Simon soothed her, rocking her in his arms like a child, "Nobody will know."

"_I know_, Simon. _I know_ what I did. Jace knows." Clary whispered, her head in the crook of Simon's chin, her wet cheek pressed to his chest.

"I was worried…" Simon faltered, his hand stroking through her hair. His breath hitched and the words died in his mouth.

"You were worried what?"

"I didn't know what you would do. You're strong, Clary. You're the strongest person I know… but not many people could handle this."

"You thought I would… hurt myself?" Clary said in between shaky breaths.

"I just want you to know that I don't care, that I don't blame you. No one could. You didn't know, Clary. You just have to let go, put it behind you."

She couldn't. It was too late. Even now, the thought of Jace made her want to throw herself into his arms and kiss him until the bright light of ecstasy bloomed under her eyes. She wanted to give in to it, and that hurt more than the knowledge that she never could. That she would never _not want it_, it would just be an ache in her chest that burned through her every day until she died.

She tried to stop the rolling, heaving gasps, but her sobs intensified at the thought. She would never feel for someone else the way she felt for Jace.

"Clary, let me help you." She was making that sound again, that sound like she was dying. "You always act so aloof, like you don't need anyone, but let me help you just this once. Let me take care of you. I want to." Then Simon's lips pressed to her tear-wet ones, his hands in her hair, smoothing the red curls sticking to her damp cheeks from her face, tilting her chin up to meet him. Clary closed her eyes. It felt nice, like she was doing something acceptable. It didn't twist her gut.

She wished Simon had kissed her like this a long time ago, before Jace had shown her how dizzying and exhilarating and heart stopping a kiss could be. She could have been satisfied with Simon's kiss, she could have been perfectly happy with him.

"I'm sorry." Simon whispered against her lips, and this time she knew his apology was for kissing her. "I've just-" Simon searched her eyes, and she felt limp. She didn't want to move away from the little source of comfort she had, and Simon had always comforted her. His clever, nerdy jokes, his fine curly hair and the way he scrunched his nose when he didn't understand something- all of that comforted her. But this wasn't right. This wasn't fair to him. "I've loved you since I can remember, Clary. I could make you happy. I could help you forget about him."

"Simon… I don't want to use you like that." Clary whispered, shaking her head weakly. Simon flinched, as though he was hoping she wouldn't say it out loud, but that's what it would be. She would be using him.

"Clary." He murmured. "I know what I'm getting into. I have no illusions. Let me take care of you."

"Simon, please." Clary shook her head, no, but she couldn't bring herself to push him away when he brushed his lips against hers again, tasting her tears.

"I love you." It was another apology he whispered into her hair as he held her tightly to his chest. "I love you."

* * *

She put her things away, dried her eyes for when Luke came, got in the car. She set her things up in the room at Luke's house just for her. She woke up the next morning and went to visit her mother. She tried not to think about it, about _him._ Simon went with her, and when he sat next to her, he slipped his hand into hers like it was the most natural thing in the world. She didn't stop him, didn't push it back. She couldn't, not when she was thinking about what her mother would say if she woke up and found out what her children had done. Invisible nails raked across her chest when this fear hit her.

"You know there's still the possibility that Valentine lied." His words fell flat in the near silence of the room, broken only by the steady whir of machines and a pulsing beep that let them know her mother's heart was still beating, steady and slow.

"….Maybe. I don't want to talk about it, Simon. Not in front of her."

It wasn't going to get better. Clary knew that now. Simon was right, it did help to have him there, to lean on him when she felt the pressure in her chest was too much. She sometimes thought of Jace, what it must be like to have no one again, and she ached until tears sprang to her eyes. She knew she had to get over it then, had to be strong. She had to try to be there for him any way she could.

She finally worked up the courage to visit the institute. Alec was in the hallway when she crept through the large entry way doors, and he looked better now- limping on crutches, but better than half-dead on a hospital bed.

Alec was surprisingly… pleasant, to her. He had a certain ease about him she had never seen before. He even thanked her for lying to him and telling him he'd killed the demon when he hadn't, just to spare his feelings.

"You did it out of kindness," he said. "That means a lot, that you would be kind to me, even after how I treated you."

"I think Jace would have been pretty pissed at me for lying if he hadn't been so upset at the time," said Clary, trying not to wince as she said his name out loud. "Not as mad as he would be if he knew what I'd said to you before, though."

"I've got an idea," said Alec, his mouth turning up at the corners. "Let's not tell him. I mean, maybe Jace can behead a Du'sien demon from a distance of fifty feet with just a corkscrew and a rubber band, but sometimes I think he doesn't know much about people."

"I guess so." Clary smiled faintly. They'd reached the bottom of the spiral staircase that led to the roof.

"I can't go up." Alec tapped his crutch against a metal step.

"It's okay. I can find my way."

He made as if to turn away, then glanced back at her. "I should have guessed you were Jace's sister," he said. "You both have the same artistic talent."

Clary paused, her foot on the lowest stair. _Sister._ That word hit her like a punch in the stomach. She composed her face before she turned to ask,

"Jace can draw?"

"Nah." When Alec smiled, his eyes lit like blue lamps, and Clary could see what Magnus had found so captivating about him. "I was just kidding. He can't draw a straight line." Chuckling, he swung away on his crutches.

Clary watched him go, bemused. An Alec who cracked jokes and poked fun at Jace was something she could get used to, even if his sense of humor was somewhat inexplicable.

The greenhouse was just as she'd remembered it, though the sky above the glass roof was sapphire now. The clean smell of the flowers cleared her head. Breathing in deeply, she pushed her way through the tightly woven leaves and branches.

She found Jace sitting on the marble bench in the middle of the greenhouse, his head bent. He seemed to be turning an object over in his hands, idly. He looked up as she ducked under a branch, and quickly closed his hand around the object.

"Clary." His voice was an inexplicable combination of emotion. "What are you doing here?" A dark storm cloud raced through his eyes before it cleared and smoothed into something blank and careful.

Clary's stomach twisted, even when her heart soared. The light hit his soft hair and illuminated the golden quality of it, just as it shone through his amber eyes and lit them up. She wished he wasn't so beautiful.

"I came to see you." She said, swallowing down the lump in her throat. They hadn't spoken since that night.

"I'm fine." He said dismissively, looking away from her. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She could see his still-fading bruises, like the dark spots on the white flesh of an apple. Of course, she thought, the real injuries were internal, hidden from every eye but his own.

"No you're not. It's ok. I'm not." Clary said softly. She couldn't speak louder or else her voice might break. Jace met her eyes and the depth of the misery there… she had to look away. She wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms and kiss away the pain from his trembling eyelids.

But that's not what siblings did.

"What is that?" she asked instead, pointing to his closed hand. He opened his fingers. A jagged shard of silver lay in his palm, glimmering blue and green at the edges.

"A piece of the Portal mirror."

She sat down on the bench next to him, gingerly, careful to keep from touching. "Can you see anything in it?"

He turned it a little, letting the light run over it like water. "Bits of sky. Trees, a path . . . I keep angling it, trying to see the manor house. My father." Jace said. His voice was husky, like a cold recently passed through his body and left some parts behind.

"I want you to go somewhere with me," she said abruptly. He looked at her sideways. Something about the way his light gold hair fell into his eyes made her feel unbearably sad.

"Where?"

"I was hoping you'd come to the hospital with me."

Jace recoiled like she'd slapped him. He looked at the ground, his fingers trembling as they closed around the shard. His eyes narrowed until they looked like the edges of coins. "Clary, that woman—"

"She's your mother too, Jace." Clary cut him off, a cold chill running through her. Jace felt it too, she saw it shake him to his core.

"I know," he said slowly. "But she's a stranger to me. I only ever had one parent, and he's gone. Worse than dead." Jace shook his head. "Besides… after what we did… how could she not despise me?"

It was the first time they'd said it out loud, and the sound of it gripped Clary with a sickness that dizzied her.

"If that's true, then she'll hate me too." Clary breathed, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

Jace closed his eyes, and Clary knew he was in pain again. Watching that hurt more than her own distress. She had to try to make this better, give him something good.

"I know there's no point in telling you how great my mom is, what an amazing, terrific, wonderful person she is and that you'd be lucky to know her. I'm not asking this for you, I'm asking for me. I think if she heard your voice . . ." Clary took a breath.

"Then what?"

"She might wake up." She looked at him steadily. He held her gaze, then broke it with a smile— crooked and a little battered, but a real smile. "Fine. I'll go with you." He stood up. "You don't have to tell me good things about your mother," he added. "I already know them."

"Do you?"

"She raised you, didn't she?" He said, looking away from her. He glanced toward the glass roof. "The sun's almost set."

Clary got to her feet. He was much taller than her, and his lean warrior's build looked so graceful even as he stood there doing nothing. She redirected her gaze to her feet instead when she caught herself thinking such thoughts. "We should head out to the hospital, then. I'll pay for the cab," she added, as an afterthought. "Luke gave me some cash."

"That won't be necessary." Another weak smile twisted its way onto Jace's mouth. It wasn't much, but it was something. "Come on. I've got something to show you."

* * *

"Where did you get it?" Clary wondered as he backed away from the revealing of the Vampire Bike.

"Magnus was complaining that someone left it in front of his house after the party, so I convinced him to give it to me."

"And you flew it up here?" This was good. Things sounded almost normal between them- just a casual, lighthearted conversation. Maybe they could pull this off, maybe they could actually be brother and sister. Maybe they could forget the past.

"I'm getting pretty good at it. Want to see?" Jace asked her, and even though there was still something fragile about the way he looked at her, something a little broken, she saw the effort there to sound cheerful, to get past it.

She could try too. They could try together.

She swung her leg over the back of the bike and tentatively circled her arms around his waist. She didn't hold tightly, couldn't bring herself to face the feelings it stirred in her, until the bike lurched and she clutched at him out of fear. Jace chuckled a little, but she felt him tense at her touch.

"If we crash into the parking lot of a key food, I'll kill you, you know that?" She yelled over the throttle of the bike.

She felt Jace chuckle again, vibrating through his rib cage and into her fingertips.

* * *

_Sorry this update took forever! Please review :D! Then p__repare yourself for some good, old-fashioned incest angst. This is still a humor/romance genre story, though, so I promise not to overdue it._


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